Diver's Paradise - The Original

[gena]

Your dive photos never disappoint! So amazing! After seeing these here and the ones on FB, I soooo want to visit Catalina now!!!! What hotel did you stay at? I loved your view!!!!!

 

Happy Valentine's Day, my dear. Give Lily a big V-Day hug from me

[markalot]

I could look at dive photos all day, thanks for posting them. You have any more?

[Deckoz2302]

I could look at dive photos all day, thanks for posting them. You have any more?

 

Shes got lots...especially the ones of her in neoprene >

[Felicia]

Beautiful pictures of your dive trip. Thanks for sharing those. Lily is such a sweet kitty. Too cute. My cats are always checking out my new tank too.

 

Your frag tank is looking great. Good planning. But your display tank is terrific, really beautiful. I am glad I found your thread!

Thanks! I'm glad you enjoyed the photos. I will tell Lily she has received another compliment She seems to have quite a fan base on Nano-Reef. Cats and fish tanks tend to be super entertaining. They're always so curious.

 

Thanks for the compliments! I'll have to go check out your threads now! I'm pretty happy with the set-up I came up with for the frag tank. I'm excited for it to finish cycling so I can start stocking it and selling frags. I've got 2 frag swaps lined up over the next couple weeks so I hope to get some great frags that I can let grow out in the new frag tank.

 

WOW! I love Catalina!!! Been there a bunch of times. A long time ago I lived on a 36 Sailboat with my Dad in Marina del Rey and we sailed over there all the time. I also have been to the isthmus and toured the chamber, very cool!

 

Actually I have a bunch of Catalina stories, but that's for another time......

 

Great dive pics as always!!!!!

 

Also, frag tank is awsome!!!

I'd been diving off of a boat in the Channel Islands before but this was my first time staying on the island. It was a super cute and relaxing little vacation town. That is so cool that you've gotten to go so many times. And living on a sailboat sounds amazing. How long did you live on the boat? You got to tour the recompression chamber? I've never seen one. I bet that was really awesome to see!

 

And thanks! Glad you approve

 

Beautiful underwater pics. How is the frag tank coming along? I'll take the Lily coral colony whenever you are ready to ship. Kthx.

Thank you, Kat! The frag tank is just cycling right now so nothing exciting is going on. I'm not getting much of a spike because there's no live sand and the live rocks were all really well cured. I may not really have a cycle at all. I figure I'll wait about 4 weeks to make sure the bacteria population has been established and everything is stable before adding anything. I'm glad you all love Lily so much, but she's the one thing in the frag tank that isn't for sale. The Lily coral is all mine She's my valentine today!

 

Your dive photos never disappoint! So amazing! After seeing these here and the ones on FB, I soooo want to visit Catalina now!!!! What hotel did you stay at? I loved your view!!!!!

 

Happy Valentine's Day, my dear. Give Lily a big V-Day hug from me

Thanks Gena! I'm glad you enjoyed the photos! And you should definitely go out to Catalina. It was really a great little weekend getaway. Even if you don't go diving you can snorkel in the dive park and its got shallow areas where you can see the kelp forrest and all the garibaldi and other fish. I stayed at La Paloma Las Flores. Its a super cute little hotel with a lot of character. Its hidden away with all the courtyards and gorgeous gardens and a resident bunny! Each room is different and you can pick your room. We stayed in apartment number 9, which based on the photos had one of the best views.

 

Happy Valentine's Day to you as well! I hugged Lily for you. She's my Valentine today We're just relaxing and watching TV tonight.

 

I could look at dive photos all day, thanks for posting them. You have any more?

You're welcome. I love sharing the photos and I'm glad you all enjoy them. I do have some more. I'll post a few more in a moment.

 

Shes got lots...especially the ones of her in neoprene >

I don't have any of me in neoprene from this trip yet. My dive buddy took some though so when I get copies of her photos, I'll post some photos of myself in my dive gear. I know you'll be looking forward to that

 

 

Opalescent Nudibranch (Hermissenda crassicornis)

 

 

 

My dive buddy with a big jellyfish

 

Garibaldi

 

My friends getting ready for a dive

 

Garibaldi above an old sunken swim platform

[NanoTopia]

Awesome pics from Catalina, these pics bring back some great memories for me, dam good diving!

[HVani]

Wow those dive photos are awesome! I would love to go diving in cool places. I've never been before.

[markalot]

More great photos, thanks for posting them.

[gena]

Thanks Gena! I'm glad you enjoyed the photos! And you should definitely go out to Catalina. It was really a great little weekend getaway. Even if you don't go diving you can snorkel in the dive park and its got shallow areas where you can see the kelp forrest and all the garibaldi and other fish. I stayed at La Paloma Las Flores. Its a super cute little hotel with a lot of character. Its hidden away with all the courtyards and gorgeous gardens and a resident bunny! Each room is different and you can pick your room. We stayed in apartment number 9, which based on the photos had one of the best views.

 

Happy Valentine's Day to you as well! I hugged Lily for you. She's my Valentine today We're just relaxing and watching TV tonight.

I just went to their website It's exactly the kind of place I would absolutely LOVE!!!! Did you do any tours while there? I know you didn't have much time and probably spent most of that diving

 

We usually do two vacations during the summer. One big one and one weekend. I think we'll make this our weekend venture. I'll be sure to reserve apt. 9. It looks the nicest

 

Thanks for giving my little Lily girl a hug from me

[Spirofucci]

You can always just go for the day to see if you like it. It's a great day trip. I think they still have glass bottom boat tours which are very cool, especially if the water is really clear. If it is the right season you can see whales, dolphins and flying fish on the way there.

[Felicia]

More great photos, thanks for posting them.

Thank you! I'm glad you enjoyed them.

 

I just went to their website It's exactly the kind of place I would absolutely LOVE!!!! Did you do any tours while there? I know you didn't have much time and probably spent most of that diving

 

We usually do two vacations during the summer. One big one and one weekend. I think we'll make this our weekend venture. I'll be sure to reserve apt. 9. It looks the nicest

 

Thanks for giving my little Lily girl a hug from me

It was definitely a super cute little hotel. The people who manage it were really nice as well. I did not do any tours because like you said, we spent most of our time diving. I've heard good things about the glass bottom boat tours and there's also a submarine there that goes out on tours so you can see what's under the water without diving. That looked like it would be fun if you aren't into diving. There's also a botanical garden on the island and lots of hiking in the wildlife preserve. It would definitely be fun as a weekend getaway, especially since you're so close in LA.

 

You can always just go for the day to see if you like it. It's a great day trip. I think they still have glass bottom boat tours which are very cool, especially if the water is really clear. If it is the right season you can see whales, dolphins and flying fish on the way there.

I agree that it would also be a fun day trip. And yeah, we saw lots of wildlife on the way over to the island. There were quite a few dolphins and sea lions that we saw from the boat.

[gena]

I'm definitely going to book it early. If it's anything like the hotels along the coastline, they sell out fast once you get closer to summer! So where do you park your car? Is there a long term parking area by the ferry?

 

I can't wait to go

[Felicia]

Glad I've inspired you to go to Cataline!

 

I bet it will be busy in the summer so that's a good plan. It's off season right now so when we were there it was really empty on the island which was nice. It just wasn't very warn unfortunately but the water temperature doesn't change much throughout the year so that's all we cared about.

 

And yes, there is long term parking. There's a parking garage at the ferry terminal that charges by the hour or $15 for a whole day. Our car was there from Friday afternoon until Sunday afternoon.

[Felicia]

Well the frag tank has had water in it for 2 weeks and it didn't have much of a cycle at all. That was expected since there's no live sand and the rock was really well cured so there was no die off. The tank spiked a tiny bit of ammonia a while back, but when I checked today everything was at 0. Since its Saturday, I decided it was a good day to go to the LFS and get some critters for the new frag tank.

 

I ended up going to 2 different stores and got a couple awesome additions for the new tank. At the first LFS I got a coral banded shrimp because I love shrimp but I wanted to get something different from the skunk cleaners and pistol that are in the 30 gallon. I also wanted a couple bright active fish in this tank so I picked up a purple dottyback. I also ended up getting a brittle star from that LFS. I had already planned to have a brittle star in this tank because I absolutely love having them in the 30 gallon. I was going to order a starfish from KP Aquatics later on, but the LFS had this tiny little red brittle star in a gorgeous red striped pattern I'd never seen before.

 

I then went to the second LFS to pick up a halloween hermit crab and ended up also getting a pygmy angel. I was going for bright colors and fish that are active swimmers (vs perching on the bottom or the rocks), so the pygmy was a perfect addition with its bright blue and yellow colors. He's a tiny little guy so he'll be great in the 10 gallon.

 

Ok, enough talk. Time for photos.

 

Some of the new additions during acclimation.

 

Lily decided she needed to inspect my new bags of fish.

 

Halloween Hermit

 

Red Striped Brittle Star

 

Coral Banded Shrimp

 

Purple Dottyback

 

Pygmy Angel

[gena]

I LOVE all your new additions. Sounds like you had a fun Saturday

[Felicia]

Ok so I'm sad/frustrated. I woke up this morning to a dead pygmy angelfish. I'm not sure what happened because the dottyback is acting totally fine and so are the shrimp and starfish. I checked the water and everything is fine. I also acclimated the fish very carefully like I always do. I just always feel so bad when a fish dies. I get attached to them and then feel really guilty even though I can't think of anything I did wrong.

 

In other bad news the Halloween hermit crab also didn't make it but he was obviously killed by either the shrimp or the dottyback. He'd been pulled out of his shell and eaten. Getting the right balance of critters in a new tank can be so frustrating. At least the dottyback, coral banded, and brittle star all seem happy and healthy today. I'll give them a while to settle in before trying to add anything else.

[metrokat]

Sorry to hear of the fish and crab passing. The coral banded shrimp is supposed to be a bad ass, it is possible he was the culprit. You might want to try another test invert before you try another fish just to make sure.

[Felicia]

Sorry to hear of the fish and crab passing. The coral banded shrimp is supposed to be a bad ass, it is possible he was the culprit. You might want to try another test invert before you try another fish just to make sure.

Yeah, I got the coral banded because the dottyback and angel are both supposed to be pretty aggressive and I wanted to make sure the shrimp didn't get picked on. I didn't realize he'd rip the big Halloween hermit to shreds. I'm pretty sure he didn't take out the angel though because when I checked on it before bed it was swimming funny. I think it must have just gotten super stressed during acclimation and just didn't recover. Also when I found the angel this morning it didn't have any damage to its body and it was nowhere near the shrimp. I'll have to keep an eye on him though. So far I haven't witnessed him doing much besides standing on the rock.

[SouthFlorida_Tron]

cool dive photos!

[AndeWonderland]

Hey great pictures from your dive!

[Spirofucci]

Sorry about the losses, they were very cool additions! Sudden losses are just as unexplainable as in the FW world. I have lost many fw fish the day I put them in the tank, for no obvious reason, well we all have. To some of us including me it gets to me a little more when its reef related, not sure why though??

[Felicia]

Sorry about the losses, they were very cool additions! Sudden losses are just as unexplainable as in the FW world. I have lost many fw fish the day I put them in the tank, for no obvious reason, well we all have. To some of us including me it gets to me a little more when its reef related, not sure why though??

Yeah fish are just so touchy. I always expect losses when adding new fish but its my least favorite part of the hobby. I love animals so I always feel awful when one dies after I add it to my tank. I was even the same way with my freshwater fish but I do seem to care even more about the saltwater critters. It just puts me in a bad mood for a bit when I love a fish or other critter. I guess that's a good thing though because it means we care.

 

In good news though, everything else seems to be doing well. The starfish is really active and has been scrambling around all over the tank. The dottyback is actively swimming about and seems to be doing well. I'm going to have to feed this tank some frozen food though because I fed some flakes and pellets last night and the dottyback seemed very uninterested. Everything in the 30 gallon eats flakes and pellets so that's what they usually get. The coral banded wasn't the least bit picky about the food last night though and was scrambling about eating all the flake food. He snapped at the dottyback a few times when she got too close to where he was eating, but they don't seem to be too overly aggressive towards one another so far.

[Felicia]

Just a fun video of the new brittle star in the frag tank. His acrobatics on the egg crate shelves are super entertaining. Here's a video of him right after I put some food in the tank. He was perched on a rock under the tallest shelf and he pulled himself up through the eggcrate to the top of the shelf to get food.

 

 

[Felicia]

He's Alive!

 

 

So apparently, what I thought was the body of the Halloween Hermit crab was actually just a molt. Rookie mistake on my part but I examined the molt really closely and it definitely appeared to be the entire crab. Also, I looked inside his shell and it looked completely empty. I'm glad I just left the shell in the tank. It sat without moving until last night when I fed the tank and out comes orange legs. I'm glad he didn't get eaten. Looks like the coral banded can now be cleared of murder charges.

 

Also, I have another fun starfish acrobatics movie. In case you guys can't tell, I'm obsessed with my new brittle star. Here's how he got back down from the shelf onto the rock. He walked upside down along the bottom of the shelf and then just dropped onto the rock. He then had to flip himself over and get all settled in on his perch.

 

 

[gena]

Love the videos...great tunes

 

Sorry about the angel...but great news about the halloween hermit It's like a roller coaster of emotions in here

 

Is it raining by you????? It is here.

[Spirofucci]

Geez, what a noob.

 

Last night I actually saw my orange knuckled hermit molting. It/she molted while in the shell so I couldn't see much, but I did feel like kind of a creep. Sorta like a peeping Tom watching a girl slip out of some very very tight jeans........