Natalia’s reefbowl: 8 years old!

[HammerLover]

Congrats on BOTM!

 

Your setup is really amazing and a great inspiration for us all. Love those yummy acans and gonis!

And your zoa/paly garden is just wow

[lkoechle]

I have seen your thread here and there over the course of the year.  every time I get ready to read it though it seems my husband is looking over my shoulder saying, "No, dont you look at that.  I know you.  You already have two tanks."

 

Buuuuuut a couple days ago he said "Could you have a tank in our room? You're so noise and light sensitive." To which the appropriate response:

"No, but I can do a reef bowl!"

 

He is letting me put together a tentative list of supplies for one on our night stand or dresser.  I love your idea and I have seen brandon's reef in the past.  If I am lucky, y'all will have a copy cat reef bowl in few months.

 

Congrats on BOTM! 

[natalia_la_loca]

Awesome Reefbowls are great. The only concern I would have with putting one is a bedroom is that some air pumps are noisy.  Although with mine, the sound of the bubbles is louder than the pump, and I find it soothing.  You could get around that issue altogether by using a submersible powerhead.

 

Lighting could be a concern, but you could adjust the light cycle so that the light is out when you're sleeping.

[lkoechle]

33 minutes ago, natalia_la_loca said:

Awesome Reefbowls are great. The only concern I would have with putting one is a bedroom is that some air pumps are noisy.  Although with mine, the sound of the bubbles is louder than the pump, and I find it soothing.  You could get around that issue altogether by using a submersible powerhead.

 

Lighting could be a concern, but you could adjust the light cycle so that the light is out when you're sleeping.

Yeah, I dont know what I want to do about flow yet.  I like having a fan on to drown out the house noises, its fluctuating noise that drives me nuts. lol So an airpump might replace my fan method. but I didn't think about a submersible pump. That would be an interesting option.

 

And def lights out from 9 to 7 at least. lol No moonlights here.

[natalia_la_loca]

More iPhone pics with yellow gel filter. I know it's not as nice as the DSLR, but it's not bad considering the convenience!

 

 

 

 

[Weetabix7]

Looks BEAUTIMOUS to me!!!!

[Flexin]

Can you take a picture of what it looks like before you do the weekly cleaning and water change.

[natalia_la_loca]

9 hours ago, Flexin said:

Can you take a picture of what it looks like before you do the weekly cleaning and water change.

 

I can, but it looks pretty much the same as it does any other day. Yesterday's pics were taken last night, and I'm doing the water change tomorrow.

[Flexin]

That is helpful.  I'm looking around for "materials" and thinking about the build.  To be honest, some of these would bug me personally because you can't see inside with the algae etc.  That's just something that I would have trouble with and not directed at anyone.  So I wanted to be realistic  regarding what I would have   did you select blown glass for a reason?  I feel like it needs to be glass for me also, I was not aware of the differences in clarity there would be between manufactured glass or hand blown.  I was not interested in plastic.  Thanks again for the help.

[natalia_la_loca]

I can actually see algae pretty well despite the bowl being blown glass and not low-iron. The glass magnifies everything, which helps for spotting algae and other problems right away.

 

I wasn't interested in blown glass per se, although I honestly like the handmade nature of it, the fact that there are bubbles or other irregularities. If you want a cleaner look with a rounded form, I would suggest you look into the Cobalt Decoria line. They are low iron and appear to be more uniformly constructed than my bowl is. They are more expensive but not that bad really.

 

I would never get acrylic/plastic. Too much risk of scratching.

[Flexin]

I'm am loving those cobalt tanks . 

[Flexin]

I'm back, how many times do you top off during the week?  

[natalia_la_loca]

11 hours ago, Flexin said:

I'm back, how many times do you top off during the week?  

 

Once. Maybe twice at most.

[Nidilsky]

Amazing. I....amazing.

[natalia_la_loca]

Sunny spring day in the reefbowl.

 

 

The zoas have been looking particularly happy lately. Utter chaos are growing a fifth head. I've been feeding more since water tests found nitrate and phosphate undetectable. I imagine that has something to do with it.

[Weetabix7]

[fishfreak0114]

Well after staring at that picture for a long while, I've just gotta say--beautiful 

[natalia_la_loca]

Look who molted 

 

 

She seems to have lost one of her anemones. Hope she finds it again! If not, I guess she can pull the remaining one apart and then she'll have two again.

[teenyreef]

They seem to lose their pom poms most often during a molt. It must be like trying to hang on to an ice cream cone in each hand while you take off your gloves 

[Weetabix7]

45 minutes ago, natalia_la_loca said:

Look who molted 

 

 

She seems to have lost one of her anemones. Hope she finds it again! If not, I guess she can pull the remaining one apart and then she'll have two again.

 

Ooh, that's so cool, obviously she's doing well!!!

[SaltyBuddha]

Looks like she will pull them apart if she does not find the other! That is so cool that I actually had to research it a little. If she ever lost both, you would have to go to the LFS and fight another Pom Pom for their pom. Then give that pom to your Pom Pom

 

"However, researchers didn't know exactly how the crabs got their decorations. To figure that out, Yisrael Schnytzer, a graduate student at Bar Ilan University in Israel, and his colleagues tracked down more than 100 boxer crabs from the Red Sea. Amazingly, every crab — even the baby crabs — were found clutching two sea anemones from the genus Alicia. [In Images: Amazing World of Deep Sea Yeti Crabs]

Back at their lab, the researchers conducted a series of experiments on the collected crabs. In the first, they took away one anemone from each crab. They found the single-anemone crabs splitting the sea anemone into two, then waiting with pom poms in claw for the anemones to regenerate to their full size over several days. Thus, the crab was inducing asexual reproduction in the sea anemones, organisms that normally don't just split willy-nilly."

 

http://www.livescience.com/57698-pom-pom-crab-clones-sea-anemones.html

 

[natalia_la_loca]

Yup, I'd heard that too, that pom poms were the only(?) animals that induced asexual reproduction in another species.

[Lula_Mae]

26 minutes ago, SaltyBuddha said:

Looks like she will pull them apart if she does not find the other! That is so cool that I actually had to research it a little. If she ever lost both, you would have to go to the LFS and fight another Pom Pom for their pom. Then give that pom to your Pom Pom

 

"However, researchers didn't know exactly how the crabs got their decorations. To figure that out, Yisrael Schnytzer, a graduate student at Bar Ilan University in Israel, and his colleagues tracked down more than 100 boxer crabs from the Red Sea. Amazingly, every crab — even the baby crabs — were found clutching two sea anemones from the genus Alicia. [In Images: Amazing World of Deep Sea Yeti Crabs]

Back at their lab, the researchers conducted a series of experiments on the collected crabs. In the first, they took away one anemone from each crab. They found the single-anemone crabs splitting the sea anemone into two, then waiting with pom poms in claw for the anemones to regenerate to their full size over several days. Thus, the crab was inducing asexual reproduction in the sea anemones, organisms that normally don't just split willy-nilly."

 

http://www.livescience.com/57698-pom-pom-crab-clones-sea-anemones.html

 

Alternately, you can buy a second pom pom, bring it home, then have your current pom pom beat it up, steal and split its nems, and eat its leg...

 

Or does that stuff only happen to me?

[Nidilsky]

The reef is a dangerous place, Lula.

[Lula_Mae]

8 minutes ago, Nidilsky said:

The reef is a dangerous place, Lula.

 

It's true!