Kat's Birthday Party

[Subsea]

As a Cajun, I have boiled many sacks of crawfish. The proper way is to boil water first, then add mud bugs or lobster, thereby assuring instant death.

An important quality control issue for a Cajun crawfish connosoire. If the tail is straight, instead of curled up, be cautious. It means that the crawfish was dead before it went into the water and could be spoiled.

[StinkyBunny]

And fresh shrimp are GREEN, not red or orange.

[Subsea]

And fresh shrimp are GREEN, not red or orange.

Actually some shrimp species are white and some are brown. I was at the HEB seafood section getting live mussels for my reef tank fish. I also wanted a pound of shrimp to make a cheviche. There were some aquacultured brown shrimp next to some much larger white shrimp. The white shrimp were $1/lb cheaper, but there feet were orange. Orange is only good after they are cooked.

[metrokat]

eeeek! I love lobster I think if I cooked a live one, I would have to give it a quick death with a chop through its head or something instead of watching it try to jump out of a pot, ouchies!

 

I'm craving some lobster now though....

The ones we had were 2 pounders, that was a bit much, by the time we got to the tail, most everybody was stuffed.

[teenyreef]

The ones we had were 2 pounders, that was a bit much, by the time we got to the tail, most everybody was stuffed.

This is what they call a "good problem to have"

[metrokat]

Things are getting better. The high salinity event caused browning and I also lost a few of my SPS.

Some recovery photos. Both of these are taking during the same lighting period. During the mid-day cycle I find my light to be the most unfavorable, everything shows beige and brown with little color. So these are taken during the most unflattering photo period.

 

July 10

 

July 15

July 25

Aug 2

[teenyreef]

Wow! It's amazing how quickly acros will color back up when the conditions are good. That's something I didn't understand when I first started keeping SPS. I'd think I fixed the problem and wait for months for things to get better before I tried something else, when I should have realized that there was still a real problem after a week or two.

[metrokat]

Wow! It's amazing how quickly acros will color back up when the conditions are good. That's something I didn't understand when I first started keeping SPS. I'd think I fixed the problem and wait for months for things to get better before I tried something else, when I should have realized that there was still a real problem after a week or two.

It depends on the problem I think too. If they are in a snit because you let the water quality deteriorate or they were subjected to harsh dips or they got into a fight with a neighbor. I think they respond differently to different problems. I don't mind telling you that I was heart broken when the Kat colony browned out. It had taken me 6 months to get my starter frag to color up 4 years ago. That was due to high phosphates, the frag had come from a low nutrient system. But this time around - wow! It was related to salinity and all affected corals recovered very well.

[Pinner Reef]

[StinkyBunny]

Actually some shrimp species are white and some are brown. I was at the HEB seafood section getting live mussels for my reef tank fish. I also wanted a pound of shrimp to make a cheviche. There were some aquacultured brown shrimp next to some much larger white shrimp. The white shrimp were $1/lb cheaper, but there feet were orange. Orange is only good after they are cooked.

Here, we get green shrimp from North Carolina. I just wanted people to be aware that orange isn't a colour you see in the northeast on shrimp that are fresh. They should smell like the sea and not very fishy. I won't do aquacultured shrimp because of how they're farmed.

[Tamberav]

Kat, I went and had fresh lobster today.... you had me craving it

[metrokat]

[Subsea]

Here, we get green shrimp from North Carolina. I just wanted people to be aware that orange isn't a colour you see in the northeast on shrimp that are fresh. They should smell like the sea and not very fishy. I won't do aquacultured shrimp because of how they're farmed.

I have seen two shrimp farms here in Texas. One near Corpus Christie was open pound. The other shrimp farm was indoors just outside San Antoine. I got involved with the indoor shrimp operation. First they pioneered probiotics bacteria to complete larvae to harvest. My involvement was cleaning up the water to reuse it. We choose Ulva macro algae because it can thrive in low salinity just like shrimp.

 

What is your objection to farmed shrimp.

[StinkyBunny]

Pollutants are a big one for me, but that's based on what I see going on in far east farms. We farm tilapia and the water is exchanged every 20 days. I'd have to see the protocols that US farms use to make an assessment on them. I tried those large tiger prawns once and I wasn't impressed.

 

I buy wild caught shrimp it's a lot cheaper for me. I have friends who are shrimpers and I get to buy wholesale directly off the boat.

[Subsea]

Yes, I agree with you about intensive aquaculture having excessive nutrients that build up. To my knowledge, EPA permites all require nutrient abatement plans with quality control standards that include testing and documentation. Most aquaculture facilities have secondary ponds to remove nutrients using algae before discharge to the enviroment. The facility that I was involved with used Aquifier water in their facility. At a time when Texas was going thru a hundred year drought, I was impressed with their reuse of the water. Ulva removed nutrients, uv sterilization removed bad bacteria with probiotic bacteria added. Ulva was feed back to the shrimp. Once, when I was leaving the facility, the director dipped a net into a tank giving me some live shrimp. As I drove home, it was weird hearing them jump about in the ice chest.

[metrokat]

Veng sent me his macro lens to try out.

 

[Subsea]

Nice. Not sure what a macro lens is but it looks like f stop on a manual camera.

[markalot]

Nice picture Kat!

[Arce]

Nice pic

[metrokat]

Still working on learning how to use it

 

[Mariaface]

You're doing great!

[StinkyBunny]

It takes practice Kat. I must have shot 300 pics till I figured it out.

[teenyreef]

I'd say you're figuring it out

[StinkyBunny]

[Dan R]

Still working on learning how to use it

 

It looks like you know how to use it.