JLynn's Softy Reef

[Weetabix7]

14 minutes ago, JLynn said:

Well here you go, then. For comparison purposes, I'm including my last pre-disaster FTS, too.

 

Before & After:

 

 

Here's a closer picture of my poor, beleaguered toadstool and some of the new gorgonians:

 

That toadstool looks like it will recover. 

[JLynn]

9 minutes ago, Weetabix7 said:

 

That toadstool looks like it will recover. 

Really? That's a relief. I mean at this point it seems clear to me that everything left over is gonna keep on surviving, but recovering... well, it's slow going. I suppose I just need to work on my patience.

[JLynn]

I took Sebastian III home with me from the LFS yesterday. He's a bit larger than Sebastian I, and a bit smaller than Sebastian II. I have sworn to him that he will not meet their fates, because I have learned from my mistakes.

 

He's settling in well. Here's a picture of him from during acclimation:

[Weetabix7]

On 7/29/2017 at 1:17 PM, JLynn said:

Really? That's a relief. I mean at this point it seems clear to me that everything left over is gonna keep on surviving, but recovering... well, it's slow going. I suppose I just need to work on my patience.

 

I think so, yeah. 

And I'm pretty sure we ALL need to work on our patience!!

I like the new Shrimpy. 

[JLynn]

Since I am moving back home, my Dad and a friend of his are making a stand for my tank. It's gonna be super basic - just a pedestal with a bit of shelving underneath so I can store all my supplements and tests and foods and supplies there. Anyways, here's a pic of what they've got done so far:

 

 

And to anyone considering making a stand instead of buying one, I just want to say that it is absolutely worth it! The IM stand for this tank is $250 - as much as the aquarium itself. Meanwhile, this stand costs just $50 to make (not counting the paint, which is probably only $15, but could be more if you want waterproof paint or something). And it's not complicated, either. You can get Home Depot or Lowes to cut the wood for you for free, so the only tools you need are a drill, several dozen screws, and a little bit of time.

[JLynn]

Yesterday evening my Dad finished off the frame of the stand and made a cabinet door for it. Not sure exactly when he's going to have it all ready for my mom to paint, but I've been reminding him to send pictures of the process, which he's been really good about, for someone so unenthused about that kind of thing.

 

The pictures from yesterday:

  

 

Also, a super cute moment from today, where I caught Mr. Hercules cuddling up with his favorite anemone, the big red striped one :

(He was completely tucked up under it at first, but he'd moved out a bit by the time I'd gotten back with my phone to take a pic )

[fishfreak0114]

Cute!

[Weetabix7]

7 hours ago, JLynn said:

Yesterday evening my Dad finished off the frame of the stand and made a cabinet door for it. Not sure exactly when he's going to have it all ready for my mom to paint, but I've been reminding him to send pictures of the process, which he's been really good about, for someone so unenthused about that kind of thing.

 

The pictures from yesterday:

  

 

Also, a super cute moment from today, where I caught Mr. Hercules cuddling up with his favorite anemone, the big red striped one :

(He was completely tucked up under it at first, but he'd moved out a bit by the time I'd gotten back with my phone to take a pic )

 

I love the crab and anemone pic!!!!

[JLynn]

The stand has really come along! I can't wait to see it in person.

 

Here is the finished, but unpainted stand:

 

Apparently my mom is using furniture spray paint to paint this? I didn't even know that was a thing! And lemme tell you, I was really worried when she told me she was spray painting it - I thought it was the kind used for graffiti at first, and that was alarming, to say the least.

 

Anyways, here it is finished up with multiple coats of spray paint applied:

 

The inside still hasn't been painted (it's too hard to do with spray paint) so I suppose I will have to do that with a brush when I get home. 

[JLynn]

Well, I'm back home in Dallas now. But of course, things couldn't go so smoothly when moving an aquarium. My mom went to the LFS and got saltwater before they left to come help me pack up and move, and the containers she used for it aren't the same ones I use. Unfortunately, these containers shed little strips of plastic into the water, which is now in my aquarium. So. I guess it's just a waiting game now. Plastic fortunately floats, so theoretically it should all go through the overflow and be trapped by the filter floss. I'll wait an hour or so and then see if that happens. If worst comes to worst, I may end up spending an hour picking out little bits of plastic by hand .

 

Once that's all done with, I'll finally be able to move my poor corals and critters back into the tank. I'll probably post a picture of the tank on Monday or Tuesday, once everything is settled in.

[JoeR]

On 7/18/2017 at 9:11 PM, JLynn said:

Alright, well I'm going to bed (I have to get up at 5 for work ). The temp is at 81 degrees, now, and by the time I wake up it should be more like 76. I leave too early in the mornings for my corals to be up, but I'm gonna go check on things at lunch tomorrow, and I'll let y'all know where we stand with the corals then. 

 

Surprisingly, Flynn lost his stress coloration about an hour ago and even felt well enough to swim around a bit and pick at some algae. So I end today on an unexpectedly hopeful note.

5? Please, thats sleeping in!-I have to get up at 3:30 for Bojangles. Even worse, managers and Biscuit makers are there at work @ 4 every morning...

 

lol just messing with you. Just read through this thread though, it's getting to be a real nice tank. 

[Lula_Mae]

7 hours ago, JLynn said:

Well, I'm back home in Dallas now. But of course, things couldn't go so smoothly when moving an aquarium. My mom went to the LFS and got saltwater before they left to come help me pack up and move, and the containers she used for it aren't the same ones I use. Unfortunately, these containers shed little strips of plastic into the water, which is now in my aquarium. So. I guess it's just a waiting game now. Plastic fortunately floats, so theoretically it should all go through the overflow and be trapped by the filter floss. I'll wait an hour or so and then see if that happens. If worst comes to worst, I may end up spending an hour picking out little bits of plastic by hand .

 

Once that's all done with, I'll finally be able to move my poor corals and critters back into the tank. I'll probably post a picture of the tank on Monday or Tuesday, once everything is settled in.

Do you have a little cheap fish bet? Would that help to fish the plastic bits out? Hope everything otherwise went smoothly!

[Lula_Mae]

5 hours ago, Lula_Mae said:

Do you have a little cheap fish bet? Would that help to fish the plastic bits out? Hope everything otherwise went smoothly!

By bet, I meant net.  Thanks autocorrect.

[JLynn]

2 hours ago, Lula_Mae said:

By bet, I meant net.  Thanks autocorrect.

I do have a net, but it's such a fine mesh that trying to rinse anything out of it is nigh impossible. I learned that when trying to use it to skim out some algae floating around in the tank. It's okay, though. I have all or most of it out, now. Flynn is in a breeder box currently, so any remaining bits of plastic floating around can't get to him (I'm worried that he may mistake a smaller bit of it for food, which would probably kill him if he tried to eat it). He'll stay in there until I'm sure I've gotten it all.

 

[JLynn]

Well, I know haven't posted in a while, and I'm sure y'all are eager for pictures, but unfortunately, that's gonna have to wait a week or two. See, two nights ago I woke up at 1 AM with horrible pain in my lower abdomen.

 

I took tylenol, applied a heating pad and tried massaging it a bit, and was eventually able to get back to sleep, but when I woke up the next morning, it still hurt pretty bad. We thought it was something uterine, since the pain was down in that area (maybe a twisted ovary?) but our gynecologist's office was really busy and just couldn't take the time to do an ultrasound, so they told us to go to an ER with an ultrasound and have them check it out there. We did, and a CT scan there revealed that I had appendicitis! I had surgery last night to remove my appendix, and was discharged from the hospital this afternoon. It really was the best case scenario for this sort of thing: my appendix hadn't ruptured, and it was only the lower part that was inflamed, not even the whole thing, so I only needed laparoscopic surgery, which only involves a couple 1-3 inch incisions in the abdomen (as un-invasive as surgery gets, really), and there were no complications. 

 

I'm especially lucky in that the doctors agreed that I should be fine to go to MACNA, still! I was really worried that this might make me miss it, but after the surgery I agree with them. My lower abdomen aches pretty fiercely right now, even on hydrocodine, but mostly only when I move it in some way: twisting around in a chair, turning over in bed, sitting or standing up, bending down. Plus, this is not even 24 hours after surgery. I think as long as I take it real easy in the days leading up to the trip, I'll be just fine. Plans are changing a little bit: it looks like I'll be flying there instead of driving, but nothing that interferes with my ability to enjoy the whole conference.  

 

I do have some bad news, though . It seems that the 2-day trip back to Dallas was the straw that broke the camel's back for the toadstool. I had to throw it out a couple of hours ago.

[Lula_Mae]

1 hour ago, JLynn said:

Well, I know haven't posted in a while, and I'm sure y'all are eager for pictures, but unfortunately, that's gonna have to wait a week or two. See, two nights ago I woke up at 1 AM with horrible pain in my lower abdomen.

 

I took tylenol, applied a heating pad and tried massaging it a bit, and was eventually able to get back to sleep, but when I woke up the next morning, it still hurt pretty bad. We thought it was something uterine, since the pain was down in that area (maybe a twisted ovary?) but our gynecologist's office was really busy and just couldn't take the time to do an ultrasound, so they told us to go to an ER with an ultrasound and have them check it out there. We did, and a CT scan there revealed that I had appendicitis! I had surgery last night to remove my appendix, and was discharged from the hospital this afternoon. It really was the best case scenario for this sort of thing: my appendix hadn't ruptured, and it was only the lower part that was inflamed, not even the whole thing, so I only needed laparoscopic surgery, which only involves a couple 1-3 inch incisions in the abdomen (as un-invasive as surgery gets, really), and there were no complications. 

 

I'm especially lucky in that the doctors agreed that I should be fine to go to MACNA, still! I was really worried that this might make me miss it, but after the surgery I agree with them. My lower abdomen aches pretty fiercely right now, even on hydrocodine, but mostly only when I move it in some way: twisting around in a chair, turning over in bed, sitting or standing up, bending down. Plus, this is not even 24 hours after surgery. I think as long as I take it real easy in the days leading up to the trip, I'll be just fine. Plans are changing a little bit: it looks like I'll be flying there instead of driving, but nothing that interferes with my ability to enjoy the whole conference.  

 

I do have some bad news, though . It seems that the 2-day trip back to Dallas was the straw that broke the camel's back for the toadstool. I had to throw it out a couple of hours ago.

Wow!  A friend just had appendicitis too!  Glad you caught it early; makes recovery much simpler.  Sorry about the toadie, but glad you get to go to MACNA!

[Weetabix7]

6 hours ago, JLynn said:

Well, I know haven't posted in a while, and I'm sure y'all are eager for pictures, but unfortunately, that's gonna have to wait a week or two. See, two nights ago I woke up at 1 AM with horrible pain in my lower abdomen.

 

I took tylenol, applied a heating pad and tried massaging it a bit, and was eventually able to get back to sleep, but when I woke up the next morning, it still hurt pretty bad. We thought it was something uterine, since the pain was down in that area (maybe a twisted ovary?) but our gynecologist's office was really busy and just couldn't take the time to do an ultrasound, so they told us to go to an ER with an ultrasound and have them check it out there. We did, and a CT scan there revealed that I had appendicitis! I had surgery last night to remove my appendix, and was discharged from the hospital this afternoon. It really was the best case scenario for this sort of thing: my appendix hadn't ruptured, and it was only the lower part that was inflamed, not even the whole thing, so I only needed laparoscopic surgery, which only involves a couple 1-3 inch incisions in the abdomen (as un-invasive as surgery gets, really), and there were no complications. 

 

I'm especially lucky in that the doctors agreed that I should be fine to go to MACNA, still! I was really worried that this might make me miss it, but after the surgery I agree with them. My lower abdomen aches pretty fiercely right now, even on hydrocodine, but mostly only when I move it in some way: twisting around in a chair, turning over in bed, sitting or standing up, bending down. Plus, this is not even 24 hours after surgery. I think as long as I take it real easy in the days leading up to the trip, I'll be just fine. Plans are changing a little bit: it looks like I'll be flying there instead of driving, but nothing that interferes with my ability to enjoy the whole conference.  

 

I do have some bad news, though . It seems that the 2-day trip back to Dallas was the straw that broke the camel's back for the toadstool. I had to throw it out a couple of hours ago.

 

Wow, you've had quite a ride of challenges!!!

I've noticed in life that stuff like this comes in clumps, so maybe this current clump of challenges is meant to prepare you for a grouping of cool possibilities ahead, at least that's what I'm hoping for you. 

Heal well, have a blast at MACNA, and find beautiful things!! 

[JLynn]

Three little bits of news to share with y'all tonight.

 

1. In order to obtain LRS Reef Frenzy (I like to tear off little chunks of it to feed directly to my shrimp and crabs), I had to go to an LFS 30 min away from me, and I'm so happy I did! This LFS has is probably my favorite one that I've been to in the DFW metroplex. Their fish and corals just looked a lot healthier than they do at the other two LFSes I've seen. They had a gorgeous 25g IM lagoon LPS tank right up front, with a tiny little blue-and-yellow fang blenny, a pair of clownfish, and an adorable pair of twin spot signal gobies, plus a bunch of super colorful scolies and stuff on the rocks. I'm in love. I'll definitely be ordering anything I couldn't get from MACNA through them.

 

2. Speaking of MACNA, we leave tomorrow! It's also supposed to rain all weekend, which, blech. But at least I'll be inside almost the whole time. Plus, we are stopping by Baton Rouge on Monday on our way back home to see some old family friends (both my elder sisters and my mom and aunt are LSU alumni, so we used to see them all the time), and we will get to see the new Mike the tiger when we do! The old Mike died suddenly of cancer in the spring, and they just found his replacement, an adorable 11 month old tiger cub, a few weeks ago. I'm super excited to meet Mike VII. 

 

3. There was drama in the tank tonight! So basically, I fed the LRS to Sebastian and Hercules, and poked some into one of Maui's tunnels for him to grab. A couple minutes later, I notice the Nassarius snail heading towards Hercules, who has his chunk clutched in one claw, and is tearing off little pieces to eat. In a gutsy move, the snail moves in on Herc's food, and Hercules jabs it with his other claw, and the pattern repeats (a couple times, Hercules swept the snail totally off the rock, onto the sand below). Eventually the snail managed to get on top of Hercules' claw with the food in it, and starts chowing down. Hercules seems to give up, pulling his claw out from under the snail, but he keeps slipping it back under the snail to steal bits and pieces of the meat back. After the food is gone, though, Hercules seems to have kept a grudge against the snail, because he - I kid you not - grabs the snail by the eyestalk, and starts flinging him around. I had to intervene, at this point, out of fear that Hercules would murder the snail through blunt force trauma and steal the rest of his meal back by cutting it out of the snail's intestines. But. Wow. Nothing like this has ever happened. I certainly didn't think a tiny crab like Hercules was capable of lifting a snail his own size with one tiny claw and throwing it bodily off a rock, or that a snail would ever have the hutzpah to steal a crab's meal right out of it's claws, even when jabbed and pinched multiple times by it's sharp little pincers. Like I said: we had some high drama here tonight.

[JLynn]

Day one of MACNA:

I went ahead and bought the MASNA membership in order to get in an hour earlier than the general population. That was totally worth it, because it meant I was able to get unimpeded looks at all the corals. I've bought two corals, a cute pair of enameled seahorse earrings, and one of those Build Your Obsession frag transport containers. One coral is a frag of two medium-sized orange ricordea polyps that have blue centers. Another is a 3-4 heads of duncan coral, with nice long tentacles. Maybe not the most spectacularly colored coral, but it was $30 for a pretty big frag, so.

 

Sadly, there were very few soft corals. I mean I knew there wouldn't be much, but this is even less than I expected. So I'll just have to find those elsewhere, I suppose. Anyways, that leaves just one more coral that I want: a nice red goniopora or zoa. I'll be tracking one of those down tomorrow. None of the fish were for sale, either. However, in my goody bag I got a 25% off discount code for Live Aquaria, which also sells ORA stuff. So I can get all my fish from them in one big shipment, the shipping will be free, and I'll save a lot of money! 

[fishfreak0114]

It's nice to hear you're having fun!  How are you recovering?  I'm jealous that you're there, one of these years I'll go!  I look forward to seeing what you bought!

[Christopher Marks]

Sounds like a great first day of MACNA! Last year was my first, it's a lot to take in on day 1!

2 hours ago, JLynn said:

Anyways, that leaves just one more coral that I want: a nice red goniopora or zoa.

Half the fun is the search!  

[JLynn]

23 hours ago, fishfreak0114 said:

It's nice to hear you're having fun!  How are you recovering?  I'm jealous that you're there, one of these years I'll go!  I look forward to seeing what you bought!

I'm recovering pretty well. It still hurts to bend over and especially to lay down and get out of bed, but it's much better than is was. The real issue is that my stomach is itchy all over, and I have some pretty bad rashes near where the incisions are. Google told me that that was probably an allergic reaction to the glue or the thread they used to bind up my wounds, and while it's nothing to worry about, per se, there's not much to do about it either. You absolutely should go whenever you get the opportunity to! Maybe they'll take MACNA back to Canada sometime soon, and it'll be closer to you (did you know that the inaugural MACNA was in Toronto?).

21 hours ago, Christopher Marks said:

Sounds like a great first day of MACNA! Last year was my first, it's a lot to take in on day 1!

Half the fun is the search!  

It's a ton to take in. I felt like I was being pulled in every direction, because there was something new and shiny everywhere. I managed to make myself go methodically down the rows, so I didn't miss anything, but it took a lot of self control not to just dart off in every direction that something caught my eye!

 

I got a nice red Goniopora for $25, so that's all the corals for me. I also just placed my order with LiveAquaria (saved like $70 with that discount), and that's all going to arrive on Tuesday. From ORA, I ordered an orchid dottyback, a pair of small misbar clownfish, and a blue/purple tridacna maxima. From Diver's Den I got a klyxum coral (it looks like a colt coral, basically). It's MASSIVE: 7 1/2 inches, and has a nice blush color. And then I got a yellow clown goby and some cerith snails (to replace all the dead astraea snails) from Live Aquaria proper. They didn't have the Randall's Shrimp goby in stock. I suppose I'll have to order that separately through an LFS. 

 

You know how I was planning on getting naked clownfish? I changed my mind, seeing them up close. Don't get me wrong; they're adorable. I still love their pattern best. But seeing them in real life, it really struck me that their orange is paler and more translucent than any of the other clownfish, and I really disliked that. When I looked at the misbar and extreme misbar clownfish in the tanks, they had a much more vivid, opaque orange. So I went with that. The really nice thing about those is that it's a bit like snowflakes: no two misbars have exactly the same pattern. So I look forward to meeting mine, and seeing what makes them unique. 

[JLynn]

Hey, how would I go about posting a video here? I made a quick little video introducing my new fish that I thought y'all'd wanna see.

[fishfreak0114]

I upload mine to youtube and share them here.

[Lula_Mae]

3 hours ago, JLynn said:

Hey, how would I go about posting a video here? I made a quick little video introducing my new fish that I thought y'all'd wanna see.

Yes, you can upload to youtube and I think you can share just by sharing the URL at the top of the page (not whatever's in the "share" options below the video.