Dr. Felicia's Predator Paradise - Retired

[Felicia]

What a gorgeous betta! Cute name too!

 

I went to my LFS down the street and he had two fox corals but they were large. So I asked him to pick me up a small frag of one next week if he can. He's going to look for me . I'm so glad I saw yours. What a pretty coral!!!! And I love how easy going the coral sounds to be. It should be perfect!

Thanks, Gena! He's definitely really pretty!

 

Hope he can get you a nice little frag. Yeah, when I've seen them locally they're usually big, but then one of my local stores listed the little frag I got on their ebay auction and I thought it was pretty cool, so figure I'd give it a try. Nice that its super easy and not aggressive.

 

What is the wattage of the pump? To get from ~68F to ~83F it takes approximately 12 watts of heat.

Not sure. It really doesn't say in the pamphlet what the pump is exactly. I'd have to pull it out of the back chamber to look at it. Its hot here today, so with nothing running on the Evolve 2 (no heater, no pump) except the LED light which isn't putting out any detectable heat, the tank was sitting stable at 77. I turned on the pump and the temperature shot up to 84 over several hours. I think it would have gone higher than that, but I don't want to fry my betta, so I turned the pump back off. Something is definitely wrong there for that little pump to be heating the water up by 7 degrees. I'll have to call Aqueon tomorrow.

 

Wow, just wow. Berkey is amazing, I need to catch up on the new Betta colors and morphs.

And the reef tank makes me want to keep looking. My head starts nodding looking at my tank which is very high energy, I can only imagine how relaxing your soft fringe tank is. Even if it does have SPS.

Thanks, Kat! Yeah I don't pay too much attention to the betta morphs and breeding. I just like finding pretty ones and I couldn't resist the yellow and blue combo.

 

Glad you're enjoying the reef! It is seriously so relaxing. Especially now with the lions who are pretty graceful and slow moving, so its very calm in there. Very different than when I had a bunch of wrasses always darting about. Very flowy and relaxing now

First kittens and now bettas... Now I'm thinking of getting a little freshwater tank once my biocube goes through it's revamp!!

Wow, I've never seen one w/ those colors. What a freaking beauty he is! Blue and yellow? I've never seen yellow.

Must... resist... temptation... to set up a betta tank!

Right! no doubt. But if you do, we'll have to start a betta thread. Still nano!!

Ha! I blame Christina (yoshi) for this with her beautiful white betta! You should all start betta tanks. The tiny freshwater tanks are sooo easy. All you need is a 2-5 gallon tank and some low light plants and then the plants take care of the fish waste and you basically never have to do water changes. I just feed my fish and top off with tap water every few days. About once every 6 months I do a water change and I prune plants as needed every couple months. Super easy!

H. As usual, aaaamazing!!! Yes, I am envous. lol Great diving shots ..like wow.

Awww! Why thank you, Marie! I'm glad you like it!

 

Speaking of dive photos, I have some new ones on the way for you guys after some quick tank updates...

[Felicia]

How about a few quick tank updates?

 

1. The antennata is completely onto frozen and eating it as heartily as Mushu and Falkor the eel. Draco is still only nibbling on frozen, but hopefully soon he'll fully convert.
2. The new solon fairy wrasse that I go unfortunately didn't make it through his first night in the tank. I found his body the next day in one of my BTA's that was attempting to eat the corpse. Had to fight the nem for the body to get it out of the tank. Yuck! Not sure what happened, because all my fish are peaceful, so its not like he would have gotten picked on. He was too big for the lions to eat, but if they were to blame, there wouldn't have been a body. Seems like there was just something wrong with him or stress. He seemed healthy at the store and ate some food there, so I hoped he'd be ok, but you never know with fish! Oh well.
3. Anyways, so I went back to the store to pick up a replacement since they still had two other solon fairy wrasses in stock, but then got diverted by a blue star leopard. I had admired it on Friday when I got the other wrasse, but the store had just gotten it in that day and it wasn't eating yet, so I didn't want to risk it. It had a few days to settle in now and was very active and healthy looking. I had the store feed it for me and it ate some frozen brine and mysis, so I decided to give it a chance. I brought it home, acclimated it, and put it in the tank and of course it went straight down into the sand. I figured I wouldn't see it at all until tomorrow, but then this evening it popped out and has been very outgoing and actively exploring the tank. She's still a bit shy, but she seems very spunky and healthy, so I'm hopeful! Snapped a quick shot of her exploring. She's bigger than she appears in the photo (its perspective with her behind the giant clam). She's big enough to not be food for the lions.
4. Berkeley is still doing well! Just still having issues with the Evolve 2 tank. If I turn the pump on it just slowly heats up to at least 84. I won't let it go above 84, so not sure how hot it would get. I'll have to call Aqueon tomorrow. So for right now the pump is just off, so the tank doesn't have flow or a heater. Luckily that's fine for bettas. When I got Berkeley, the store had him in a tank with little neon tetras, so I picked up a trio of those to be his little buddies. However, the neon tetras started picking on each other (didn't know they did that) and now I'm down to just one dominant tetra. Oh well! They were cheap and lesson learned apparently. Here are a few pretty shots of Berkeley!

[Felicia]

In other news... I went diving today!

 

It had been too long! Unfortunately the weather was a bit uncooperative, so we had to make some last minute changes of plan, but we still got a dive in. We were supposed to be meeting a local dive shop for their monthly fun dive at this beach called Monastery in Carmel, CA. Well on the way down there, they let us know that it was storming and that they were canceling the dive. Crazy because storms here during the summer are unheard of and this one had lightning, which has happened like a total of twice in the 5 years I've lived in CA. We were almost there and we'd rented tanks and gotten up super early to drive 2 hours down there, so we decided to at least see if the storm would pass. The original dive site was in Carmel, which isn't in a bay or anything, so its not sheltered, so if there's any weather it can get rough and nasty for diving. So we decided to instead check out one of the easy Monterey sites because Monterey Bay is much more sheltered, and it was further north and on the edge of the storm instead of right in the thick of it. We got there and the water was super calm like a lake and the lighting stopped within 15 minutes, so we decided to dive. It was drizzling when we got in, but after our 40 min dive we got out to warm sunshine.

 

With all the changes of plan and since the forcast said another storm was supposed to blow through around noon, we just decided to do the one dive instead of our planned two. That was ok though because it was a great dive. Not amazing visibility, but average for this time of year and there was an abundance of cool critters. Seems like different ones have different seasons and breeding times, so sometimes you'll have tons of a specific critter. Today there were sooooo many sea hares and a ton of a nudibranch species that we hadn't spotted before. I always love seeing new nudibranchs! They're one of my favorite things to see diving. Anyways, enough talk! I have some photos for you guys!

 

Since I mentioned the plethora of sea hares, here's one of them.

 

And here's a big sea hare orgy! I've never seen them clustered like that. Usually you see them by themselves, so I'm guessing its mating season or something.

 

A white-spotted dorid nudibranch, which we see quite frequently.

 

The nudibranch species we saw for the first time, MacFarland's Chromodorid. These were everywhere today!

 

 

 

Hopkin's Rose nudibranchs

 

 

 

Starfish closeup. I love the different textures on the big starfish around here.

 

 

Tube anemone

 

Tons of sand dollars

 

Not sure what these are...tunicates maybe?

 

Urchin surrounded by tons of brittle star legs.

 

[patback]

Tank and those dive pics are awesome. I just did a quick skim. Question, I see snorkeling in rough waters an issue, why diving though? Is it just the lighting that makes a difference or does the bottom actually become turbulent? Being in NY, my water is mostly murky and difficult to see through either way.

[Felicia]

Tank and those dive pics are awesome. I just did a quick skim. Question, I see snorkeling in rough waters an issue, why diving though? Is it just the lighting that makes a difference or does the bottom actually become turbulent? Being in NY, my water is mostly murky and difficult to see through either way.

Thank you! Its actually not really the diving portion that's the issue in rough water, although as the water gets rougher, it stirs up more silt and the visibility goes down and can make it not worth diving since you can't see anything. The big issue though is really getting in and out of the water. We were doing beach diving, so you have to be able to walk into and out of the water with a ton of heavy gear on, so if it gets really rough on the surface, you can get knocked over and battered around. There are a lot of rocks where we dive, so you could get thrown into rocks. Also, if the ocean gets really rough, it can be very hard to get out of the water because the surge just keeps trying to pull you back out to the ocean. That's when it can get dangerous. Diver's can get exhausted at that point after a dive and not be able to fight the surge back in. The ocean has to be pretty rough for you to feel it once you're down below like 20 feet or so, but if it does get pretty rough, you can get pushed back and forth a bit underwater, but that's more minor. Weirdly, the dive shop today canceled because of the lighting, but that's not really a risk underwater and it wasn't that close. I grew up in Florida where it lightnings all the time, so I guess I'm not that careful about lighting, but its so rare in CA that they tend to take it much more seriously.

[patback]

Thank you! Its actually not really the diving portion that's the issue in rough water, although as the water gets rougher, it stirs up more silt and the visibility goes down and can make it not worth diving since you can't see anything. The big issue though is really getting in and out of the water. We were doing beach diving, so you have to be able to walk into and out of the water with a ton of heavy gear on, so if it gets really rough on the surface, you can get knocked over and battered around. There are a lot of rocks where we dive, so you could get thrown into rocks. Also, if the ocean gets really rough, it can be very hard to get out of the water because the surge just keeps trying to pull you back out to the ocean. That's when it can get dangerous. Diver's can get exhausted at that point after a dive and not be able to fight the surge back in. The ocean has to be pretty rough for you to feel it once you're down below like 20 feet or so, but if it does get pretty rough, you can get pushed back and forth a bit underwater, but that's more minor. Weirdly, the dive shop today canceled because of the lighting, but that's not really a risk underwater and it wasn't that close. I grew up in Florida where it lightnings all the time, so I guess I'm not that careful about lighting, but its so rare in CA that they tend to take it much more seriously.

ooooh I see then. I grew up on the beach all my life, but I have only truly snorkeled above a reef once recently. Just trying to go 10 feet down was hard enough for me, I couldnt imagine having all that gear on and not freaking out, let alone fighting waves. When we went, I actually knocked my goggles into the water and had to swim down to pick them up. Knowing nothing about equalizing, after the 5th attempt at grabbing them 35 feet under the surface, I gave up on my dream of scuba diving, lol. I did get a chance to grab an intact 8" sea dollar though while I was down there though, so I guess it was worth it.

[markalot]

Love the dive pics! Good news on the new little wrasse, hope he makes it.

[kimberbee]

Wow! Awesome pics!!

[Mr. Microscope]

Looks like a fun dive! Thanks for sharing pics!

[HarryPotter]

I only went scuba diving once in Jamaica a few years ago, but those pictures make me drool of going again!!!

[gena]

Starfish closeup. I love the different textures on the big starfish around here.

That's a Miami Vice Starfish . Too bad they don't come in tropical and miniature size for our nano tanks .

 

Glad you were safe yesterday on your dive!!!!!

[vlangel]

Very cute little wrasse. I will keep my fingers crossed that it adjusts well.

 

Scuba diving is on my bucket list. I have snorkelled and I am a good swimmer but I really want to dive some time. My sister is willing to do it with me. Since we are both in our 50s I guess we better get busy and not wait to long.

How long have you been diving?

[1.0reef]

Looks great! I'm getting to dive in Croatia tomorrow!

[Felicia]

ooooh I see then. I grew up on the beach all my life, but I have only truly snorkeled above a reef once recently. Just trying to go 10 feet down was hard enough for me, I couldnt imagine having all that gear on and not freaking out, let alone fighting waves. When we went, I actually knocked my goggles into the water and had to swim down to pick them up. Knowing nothing about equalizing, after the 5th attempt at grabbing them 35 feet under the surface, I gave up on my dream of scuba diving, lol. I did get a chance to grab an intact 8" sea dollar though while I was down there though, so I guess it was worth it.

Honestly, I think scuba diving is way more calming than snorkeling. Snorkeling you feel like you're not getting enough air through the little snorkel tube, so you can feel claustrophobic. Also, if you want to dive down, you have to hold your breath. Plus you're on the surface the whole time, so you have to contend with waves. With diving, getting in and out you have to deal with the surface waves if you do a beach dive (with boat dives you just jump in and then let yourself sink down under water so that's super easy) and then the rest of the time you're underwater where its calm and peaceful. Also, you have plenty of air the entire time, so no holding your breath required and I never get that same claustrophobic feeling you get with a snorkel. I always find diving so relaxing, so even if you're not a huge snorkeling fan, I'd still recommend giving diving a try if you ever have the chance

 

Love the dive pics! Good news on the new little wrasse, hope he makes it.

Thanks, Mark! Figured my diving-inspired thread was due for some dive photos I really hope this wrasse does well. We'll see if she's out an about later today when I get home from work.

 

Wow! Awesome pics!!

Thanks, Kimber!

 

Looks like a fun dive! Thanks for sharing pics!

Thanks, Eric! It was a pretty decent dive considering all the last minute plan changes. Me and my dive buddy always love seeing nudibranchs, so seeing a species we hadn't seen before made it all worthwhile!

 

I only went scuba diving once in Jamaica a few years ago, but those pictures make me drool of going again!!!

You should definitely go again!

 

That's a Miami Vice Starfish . Too bad they don't come in tropical and miniature size for our nano tanks .

 

Glad you were safe yesterday on your dive!!!!!

Haha, yeah it does look like it has Miami vices all over it, doesn't it? Those stars come in so many different fun textures and colors. Its too bad they're all so huge and coldwater species. I'd love to someday have a big coldwater tank with some of these guys.

 

Yeah the dive went very smoothly after the change of plans. We always do our best to stay safe!

 

Very cute little wrasse. I will keep my fingers crossed that it adjusts well.

 

Scuba diving is on my bucket list. I have snorkelled and I am a good swimmer but I really want to dive some time. My sister is willing to do it with me. Since we are both in our 50s I guess we better get busy and not wait to long.

How long have you been diving?

Thank you! Here's to hoping that this one settles in well.

 

Snorkeling is so much fun, but imo, diving is just above and beyond. You and your sister should definitely get certified and go diving! As long as you're in somewhat decent shape, anyone of any age can dive! Most of the really hardcore, experienced divers around here are older men, so its definitely not limited to being young. I got certified in spring of 2010, so its been a little over 5 years now that I've been diving.

 

Looks great! I'm getting to dive in Croatia tomorrow!

That's awesome! Definitely share some photos!

 

 

 

 

Small update...

 

I spoke with Aqueon today and they have great customer service. They're sending me a replacement pump for the Evolve 2. Still baffled as to how this pump is putting out so much heat, but its definitely the pump. With the tank sitting with just the light, the temperature yesterday was 77-78. Then I turned on the pump and over a few hours it creeped up to 84 before I turned the pump back off. After I turned the pump back off, it cooled back down to 77-78.

[ReefWeeds]

Thanks, Gena! He's definitely really pretty!

 

Hope he can get you a nice little frag. Yeah, when I've seen them locally they're usually big, but then one of my local stores listed the little frag I got on their ebay auction and I thought it was pretty cool, so figure I'd give it a try. Nice that its super easy and not aggressive.

 

Not sure. It really doesn't say in the pamphlet what the pump is exactly. I'd have to pull it out of the back chamber to look at it. Its hot here today, so with nothing running on the Evolve 2 (no heater, no pump) except the LED light which isn't putting out any detectable heat, the tank was sitting stable at 77. I turned on the pump and the temperature shot up to 84 over several hours. I think it would have gone higher than that, but I don't want to fry my betta, so I turned the pump back off. Something is definitely wrong there for that little pump to be heating the water up by 7 degrees. I'll have to call Aqueon tomorrow.

 

Thanks, Kat! Yeah I don't pay too much attention to the betta morphs and breeding. I just like finding pretty ones and I couldn't resist the yellow and blue combo.

 

Glad you're enjoying the reef! It is seriously so relaxing. Especially now with the lions who are pretty graceful and slow moving, so its very calm in there. Very different than when I had a bunch of wrasses always darting about. Very flowy and relaxing now

Ha! I blame Christina (yoshi) for this with her beautiful white betta! You should all start betta tanks. The tiny freshwater tanks are sooo easy. All you need is a 2-5 gallon tank and some low light plants and then the plants take care of the fish waste and you basically never have to do water changes. I just feed my fish and top off with tap water every few days. About once every 6 months I do a water change and I prune plants as needed every couple months. Super easy!

Awww! Why thank you, Marie! I'm glad you like it!

 

Speaking of dive photos, I have some new ones on the way for you guys after some quick tank updates...

I was thinking I want to start a fresh water betta tank but has to be a white one That is so cool.

[Felicia]

I was thinking I want to start a fresh water betta tank but has to be a white one That is so cool.

Yeah the all white bettas are beautiful! There have been too many really nice ones around here lately! I want them all! Trying to restrain myself to just my current 2 My local store had some really pretty black and white ones and some really pretty white ones with red and blue splotches. I just couldn't resist the contrast of the blue and yellow on Berkeley.

[kimberbee]

Yeah the all white bettas are beautiful! There have been too many really nice ones around here lately! I want them all! Trying to restrain myself to just my current 2 My local store had some really pretty black and white ones and some really pretty white ones with red and blue splotches. I just couldn't resist the contrast of the blue and yellow on Berkeley.

 

Do bettas actually swim around when they are happy? The pics you've posted are so pretty, but the betta I had when I was younger just sort of sat there and was really boring...

[Felicia]

 

Do bettas actually swim around when they are happy? The pics you've posted are so pretty, but the betta I had when I was younger just sort of sat there and was really boring...

Bettas tend to sit pretty still a lot of the time, but mine always get excited and swim around when I'm near the tank. They're one of those fish that interact with people and they like to beg for food. I've always really liked them because they're more interactive with people than just about any other FW fish.

[Mirya]

I love it when you share your fab dive photos. Thanks!

 

So I was looking over the specs on your last tank compared to this tank. I see you switched from a SCA skimmer to a Reef Octopus. Would you mind sharing the pros/cons of each? I'm going to be sumping my Florida Flower Garden so have been checking out the equipment on all my favorite reefs. (Potentially even considering having SCA make the new tank.)

[jedimasterben]

 

Do bettas actually swim around when they are happy? The pics you've posted are so pretty, but the betta I had when I was younger just sort of sat there and was really boring...

[yoshii]

Mission successful Welcome to the cool Betta Club

 

Wow those diving pics are awesome, those nudis are so awesome! I've always wanted to try to catch a nudi in a tidepool or in the lower intertidal but I never have Obviously I need to go diving

[HarryPotter]

 

Thats awesome!

 

I have a 75g community freshwater tank with some overpowered (AquaSun) LEDs.... How hard would it be to plant it a bit? As of now its fine sand only with generic plastic ornaments

[brad908]

Did you see any great whites while diving? I read an article about all the great whites and other sharks in the area now because of El Niño.

[Pinner Reef]

 

 

Moving these to the new page

 

Could only push like once.

[Felicia]

I love it when you share your fab dive photos. Thanks!

 

So I was looking over the specs on your last tank compared to this tank. I see you switched from a SCA skimmer to a Reef Octopus. Would you mind sharing the pros/cons of each? I'm going to be sumping my Florida Flower Garden so have been checking out the equipment on all my favorite reefs. (Potentially even considering having SCA make the new tank.)

Thanks, Mirya! Glad you enjoy the dive photos! I like sharing them here because people with aquariums definitely appreciate them and know about the critters in the photos

 

Pros on the SCA skimmer are definitely price (super affordable...I got mine for like $80 on Amazon) and its size. The footprint is very small since the pump is underneath the body. Also, its a high quality skimmer and is basically an exact replica of the equivalently sized Bubble Magus skimmer. My main reason for replacing it was that it was only rated for up to 65 gallons. Most people recommend getting a skimmer rated for twice your water volume for reef tanks, so that would have been too small for my new 40B. It skimmed pretty well, and my only real complaint with it was how you adjusted the bubble height. It has a tube on the side that rotates to adjust the foam, and that was really easy to bump and move it. That portion definitely could have been designed a bit better. Otherwise, my only other issue was that in order to get to the pump to clean it or anything, you had to remove the entire skimmer from above it. That's a trade off thing though because the minimized footprint is a pro, but the lack of ease to get to the pump is a con. In my new sump I have more space, so I preferred having a bit bigger footprint and being able to easily access the pump since its off to the side of the Reef Octopus skimmer.

 

Ok, so for the Reef Octopus, I'd say the only big con is the footprint size, which is pretty big. I have plenty of space for it though, so that doesn't bother me. Otherwise its really well made and does a great job skimming. I have to say that I think its the best skimmer I've owned. I love that it has a nice gate valve to adjust the bubble level, so once you set it, you can't like bump it and mess up the setting. Also, the gate valve is really easy to fine tune and get it just right. I feel like this skimmer is the first "real" skimmer I've ever owned. All the others, while nice are made for nano tanks and while they are decent, they just don't seem to have the power of the big skimmers. I really have no complaints at all about the Reef Octopus as long as you have the space for it. Oh, I guess the price is a drawback, but I got mine used for $75, so I can't complain about that at all!

 

Love your planted tank and that white betta!

 

Mission successful Welcome to the cool Betta Club

 

Wow those diving pics are awesome, those nudis are so awesome! I've always wanted to try to catch a nudi in a tidepool or in the lower intertidal but I never have Obviously I need to go diving

Thanks, Christina! I was doing so good resisting until I went in Aquatic Collection and made the mistake of looking at their FW section. Dang it! My poor original Petco betta. He's like, "I'm already cool!" Feel like he's the sad step child I still love him!

 

I love nudibranchs as you know! Still need to get me one of those cool necklaces like you have! I've never seen them in tide pools, but I usually spot at least one each dive locally. You just have to keep your eyes peeled for them because they're small, so if you're not looking for them, you'll miss them. You should definitely go diving! You'd LOVE it!

 

Did you see any great whites while diving? I read an article about all the great whites and other sharks in the area now because of El Niño.

I didn't see any great whites I heard that there is an abnormal number of juvenile great whites in Monterey Bay, but we didn't see any while diving. I've only seen a few sharks so far while diving around here and its always the super peaceful leopard sharks that pretty much just lay on the bottom.

 

 

Could only push like once.

 

 

 

In good news...

 

The blue star leopard is alive and well today! Always a great sign when new fish make it through the night. She's out an about this evening eating my crazy copepod explosion. The lions are totally ignoring her and she doesn't seem the least phased by any of the other fish. The eel is out and about right now because he knows its feeding day and I usually feed around this time of night, but she's not the least bothered by him. Seems like a pretty outgoing fish. I'm hoping she does well long term. Well anyways, off to feed my greedy predators!