Blenwood's Reef - 1st attempts at focus stacking

[YHSublime]

1 hour ago, Cannedfish said:

Really?! What did he do? I bet he has some awesome stories. We have been fortunate to travel all over the world, and I must say the Bhutanese people may be  the nicest we've encountered. I mean, we were hiking up to a temple, and the Queen Mother passed us on a pilgrimage to it, so we stepped off the trail (as you should with the royalty of a foreign country... I guess), and I'm standing there looking like the idiot I am, poorly wearing the traditional Bhutanese men's clothing (called a 'gho'), which is essentially a bathrobe that takes two people to put on. And she stops her whole entourage to talk to us, and tell us how happy she is that we were visiting Bhutan. And if that wasn't enough, says, with a completely straight face, that I looked handsome wearing the traditional goh. I stood there hoping that I could one day lie with the same amount of grace and class. 

He was an economist for the World Bank, and sure does have some awesome stories. Because of that I was also fortunate enough to travel all over the world as well. Ironically I've seen more of the rest of the world than I have the USA. 

 

I have many good friends that are Nepalese as well, they truly are the nicest/happiest folks!

[Cannedfish]

Some non-photosynthetic sunshine on this quarantine Thursday. Fun fact: did you know a sheep, a duck, and a rooster were the first passengers in a hot air balloon? Well know you know. See, you’re already a little bit smarter than yesterday. 

 

Bi-color sun corals? (half the head is pink base yellow head, the other half is solid bright yellow). Also its attached to an live oyster... which is fun. 

 

Balonophyllia.

[Cannedfish]

I’m continuing the restock process which allow me the opportunity to partake in one of my favorite, and if I can be so glum, best, activities: making rash and questionable decisions. More specifically, rash and questionable decision tied to purchases. Today’s, purchases was supposed to be RODI water, which quickly changed to to coral buying. Deciding my past history saying that I’m unable to keep chalices is an unreliable narrator, I obviously decided to buy a chalice. And much like late night shots, it’s never a good idea to stop a one. So I also bagged up some blastos... and a zoas. Because, ‘Murica, damnit. For those gifted in the art of internet pandering, and virtual heroism, the following disclaimer 1) RODI water is an essential need, 2) the LFS is in the middle of nowhere Louisiana where, a) it would be difficult to gather more than ten people, and b) the six foot, nay, 20 foot human contact rule is... difficult to not achieve. Anyway, in all seriousness, the two of us where careful anyways. And I have been disinfecting heavily with Buffalo Trace... alcohol... disinfectant. Anyways, with out further ado, and because I know you have nothing else to do... crappy pictures!

 

 

The single zoa I bought... considering going zoa barebottom. 

 

The chalice I’m going to inevitably kill... which is a bummer, cuz this is one of my three favorite trade chalices. 

[This guy is extra salty]

1 hour ago, Cannedfish said:

I’m continuing the restock process which allow me the opportunity to partake in one of my favorite, and if I can be so glum, best, activities: making rash and questionable decisions. More specifically, rash and questionable decision tied to purchases. Today’s, purchases was supposed to be RODI water, which quickly changed to to coral buying. Deciding my past history saying that I’m unable to keep chalices is an unreliable narrator, I obviously decided to buy a chalice. And much like late night shots, it’s never a good idea to stop a one. So I also bagged up some blastos... and a zoas. Because, ‘Murica, damnit. For those gifted in the art of internet pandering, and virtual heroism, the following disclaimer 1) RODI water is an essential need, 2) the LFS is in the middle of nowhere Louisiana where, a) it would be difficult to gather more than ten people, and b) the six foot, nay, 20 foot human contact rule is... difficult to not achieve. Anyway, in all seriousness, the two of us where careful anyways. And I have been disinfecting heavily with Buffalo Trace... alcohol... disinfectant. Anyways, with out further ado, and because I know you have nothing else to do... crappy pictures!

 

 

The single zoa I bought... considering going zoa barebottom. 

 

The chalice I’m going to inevitably kill... which is a bummer, cuz this is one of my three favorite trade chalices. 

That is a sweet Chalice serious you need to keep it alive..

[Cannedfish]

On 4/4/2020 at 7:25 PM, This guy is extra salty said:

That is a sweet Chalice serious you need to keep it alive..

So far so good... but don't put it past my skills to be able to nuke it. I'm glad I finally pulled the trigger on a Raja Rampage chalice... I've been mulling around the idea of slowly going bare bottom, if the bottom was completely covered in coral (so not really bare bottom... coral bottom... ). This maybe the first real step towards that goal. 

 

......................

Anyways, if y’all were feeling down this Monday, remember it could always be worse... You could have woke up like the lepto here, and discovered that over the night your neighbor decided he had enough of your %$&* and decided to expel his stomach and eat you. Yup, the lepto is have a real terrible case of the Monday’s.  
 

 

 

Also I thought I had instantly bleach and killed this CrazyT monti when adding it to the tank last week, but if you squint real hard, and bend reality a bit, you can just make out teeny tiny polyps... there is still hope for this over priced booger....

[Cannedfish]

Being that, you know, quarantine, I don’t have much to tell y’all. No fun stories, no quaint antidotes of me lighting a structure fire, no evidence to conceal, nothing. Heck, Blenwood II can’t even legally gamble on sports via the internet. Basically, the time been spent letting myself go in ways that I generally feel morally reprehensible about, mainly, wearing sweatpants after age four, growing facial hair that can’t be described as “in the Parisian style, and having zero occasions to wear a tuxedo. Yup, it’s essentially all mediocre bourbon and puzzles under this overpass in this uptown New Orleans abode. We don’t even have room for a cocktail pool(let alone a slip-n-slide) in our backyard... it really makes you take a look at your life decisions. That being said here are some crappy pictures for you to judge and make some backhanded complement about... I love how you are able to grow algae...meow... your fish look so delightfully skinny... that kinda of sh€t.... oh yeah the baby chicks now look and act like mini dinosaurs... it warms my heart they grow up so fast...

 

Look at that facial hair... and mini dinos...

 

This guy (its a lady) needs a name... we name our emerald crab: "Dave the Slave" since we got him to eat algae

 

Paid too much...

 

Eh...

[Cannedfish]

Ethically and social distance-ly sourced new friends.

 

 

[Cannedfish]

Third one’s the charm, right?

 

 

[Cannedfish]

It’s Friday, so you know what that means... nothing... unfortunately in life in the time if corona, it’s very much like Groundhog Day, the weekend just means instead of conducting zoom meetings without pants, I’m doing gardening work without pants. Basically, quarantine in Blen-Manor consists of a dearth of lower garments. But alas, it’s not all for naught, for art thou puzzles and tequila, and feeling saintly (rather than lazy) for ordering take out. Because life is so dull up town New Orleans, I’ve been walking our puppy at night without a Leash... it gives me a sense of danger... it allows me to feel. But in reality, he is a softy and there are no cars, so it’s really just a cheap thrill.  To ease our boredom I might just start asking a bunch of asinine reefing questions (I’m looking at you @mitten_reef) Anyway, I hope y’all are having more fun than me. Lorp will keep Lorping and we will all get through this. 

 

.......

 

To the crappy pictures....

 

Lorp in his lighter spring colors...

 

The new soft boy... clearly the death metal chicken is afraid...

 

Bane of my existence.... 

 

All rainbow acans are just red acans...

 

Midas... I guesss... they just look green to me...

 

Oh yeah... picked up a bounce blasto... lets see how this goes....

[mitten_reef]

that zoa looks almost like scrambled eggs.  hmmm, although the blue center isn't quite defined on yours....here's my example, sorry for a spam....

 

 

when r u gonna stop by my thread?  🤣  

[Cannedfish]

5 minutes ago, mitten_reef said:

that zoa looks almost like scrambled eggs.  hmmm, although the blue center isn't quite defined on yours....here's my example, sorry for a spam....

 

 

when r u gonna stop by my thread?  🤣  

 I have like a year to catch up on! And we both know "I dun don't read good!"

[Cannedfish]

Happy Dyngus Day! May you collect all the eggs, and may the pussywillow beatings be light!

 

PPC

 

Morning Tank Shot

 

Too bad its not udder chaos...

[Cannedfish]

As I continue to attempt to get this train back on track, I spent several hours this weekend in a sort of Marie Kondo, reset. That meant a quasi-deep clean: taking everything thing out of the "sump" scrubbing it down, and cleaning out all the chambers. I also cleaned out and organized the fish closet; removed, cleaned out, and re-calibrated the dosing pump; and lastly complete redid the cord management. After dusting off all the Hanna checkers, I decided for fun to check the tanks alkalinity (note that I still pretty religiously still do a 10-20% WC every other day or so). To my surprise, even testing immediately after the rather large water change that resulted from the clean out, the alk test came back at 5.5 dkh (I use AF reef salt, which runs 7.4-8.2 dhk). This probably means that the tank has been running in the low to mid fives for alk (5.0-5.5 dhk), for awhile. It is honestly, incredible that the acros have looked okay, and have been actually been growing. As a result of this alkalinity revelation, I have committed to putting the dosing pumps back online and getting back in the habit of testing and recording daily. Furthermore, the last two weeks I have been aggressive attacking the dinos that have reared their ugly head again (the same ones that caused the crash last year). Learning from some of my many past mistakes,'ve been battling the dino-dragon through a strong-armed combination of a UV filter, aggressive hydrogen peroxide, obsessive filter media changing, bacteria dosing (NP Pro), and raising the nutrient levels. So far this has pretty much completely beat them back. I know you can never really get rid of these shit-stains but as long as the boogie man stays in the closet, I'm happy. So in conclusion, equipment wise, the tank organized and fully back online; parameters wise, we are making steady and positive progress. Overall, outside of aforementioned problems, the tank is looking slightly better then I did the day after prom. At least it has most of the buttons to its tuxedo, and its bow tie isn't covered in a mysterious and undoubtedly questionable substance. It's gonna be a good year: Blen -4- President 2020!

 

And now, crappy photos (honestly, I feel like I have completely forgot how to take tank photos):

 

 

 

Less than happy bounce... I can't keep these things for the life of me... this is number 3...

 

Evil Cyphastrea... 

 

Sun Coral... Either this or the Dendros be making some babies... cuz little orange tentacle blobs are popping up. 

 

Back-wall WWC peppermint cyphastrea...

[lizzyann]

Congrats on keeping the dinos at bay!  They started to creep back on me recently when I waited too long to do a water change, then probably did too big of one and likely made things a little too clean. Thankfully they never quite got hold and I was able to just feed a little more and do smaller water changes and that kept them back. They really are always there, huh? lurking... starving... waiting for their chance to overthrow the kingdom 😈 Pretty nightmare inducing as far as single celled brown globs go!

[Cannedfish]

17 hours ago, lizzyann said:

Congrats on keeping the dinos at bay!  They started to creep back on me recently when I waited too long to do a water change, then probably did too big of one and likely made things a little too clean. Thankfully they never quite got hold and I was able to just feed a little more and do smaller water changes and that kept them back. They really are always there, huh? lurking... starving... waiting for their chance to overthrow the kingdom 😈 Pretty nightmare inducing as far as single celled brown globs go!

Thanks! The dinos are at bay for now. I just have to keep those little anarchists in the sewers going forward. Honestly, if those single celled blobs ever gain sentience we are all screwed. 

[Cannedfish]

Monthly update time! I’m pretty embarrassed to post the current FTS but there’s no better way to document his progress. I will post the current stock in an equipment list soon. In the meantime here goes nothing, don’t be too critical. It has a long way to go.

 

[mitten_reef]

what's the blob in the front?  is it a limpy space pectinia? 

 

Also knowing your purchasing habit (acro-centric), I'd recommend you evicting the birdnests. at the very least, that top center one has no business being there.  

 

I see that the spherical sea lettuce farm is still alive and well.

[Cannedfish]

what's the blob in the front?  is it a limpy space pectinia? 

 

It's definitely a limpy pectinia... it's some sort of three color aussie pectinia that I've grown out since about the size of a thumb name. Unfortunately, beside sentimental value it does little else, and will be evicted next time I go to the LFS. The tentative plan is to slowly move towards barebottom, so in its place will likely be a the Raja Rampage chalice, a WWC jellybean chalice, a crazy trachy (if i can find one) or the bounce (if it lives). 

 

Also knowing your purchasing habit (acro-centric), I'd recommend you evicting the birdnests. at the very least, that top center one has no business being there.

 

Nice eyes! Yup, that too is on its way out. That is the only piece from my last birdsnest that lived, and has been grown out from about 4 polyps, it is going to be moved to the bottom by the other twig of birdsnest (I love a big bush of birdsnest in the lower right hand corner). In its place we more than likely be Vivid's Confetti or CB's Maleficent. 

 

I see that the spherical sea lettuce farm is still alive and well.

 

Oh lerrrd, you know it!

[Cannedfish]

Some pics and banal commentary for your quarantine excitement. 
 

It's tough to make out, but this booger is still alive, and just starting to show hints of color around the edges... Really hope I fail to kill this, really looking forward to seeing it color up.

 

I have the distinct ability to magically transform any acan into a boring red acan. I will do my best to use this power for good. 

 

The highlighter has been putting on size despite my best efforts. I have raised the alk up to nearly 7.0 dkh with a goal of 8.0 dkh. Hopefully, under these more ideal conditions (not 5.0 dkh) it will really begin to take off. 

[mitten_reef]

27 minutes ago, Cannedfish said:

 

 

That is a booger size frag!  Looks like a monti, but which one? Beach bum?  

[Cannedfish]

1 hour ago, mitten_reef said:

That is a booger size frag!  Looks like a monti, but which one? Beach bum?  

Surprisingly , this is one of the few occasion where (insert X) is bigger than it looks. Luckily, that plug is rather larger (1" plug), so its not exactly a microscopic booger, but it's still small. But good eye, it is a monti! Specifically, a RR CrazyT. It's supposedly brighter than the Kung Pow, which is one of the brightest corals I've ever seen in a tank (literally glows from across the room). So when I restarted the tank, this was at the top of the list of corals I needed to add (along with the OT, WD, SCOP, and bounce). Unfortunately, it arrived in really rough shape. There were several times where I honestly couldn't tell if it was still alive. But somehow it survived, and as a silver liner, I get to watch it color back up. 

[Cannedfish]

Went to the store and this happened...  but I’m not too upset: one coral was on my need list; one coral was on my “maybe... if it happens we’ll keep the baby” list; and one coral was just a bad decision. 
 

Here are some really crappy iPhone pics:
 

The bane of all wallets and my employment ... pee cups 

 

After Party & Confetti

 

An LPS I couldn’t walk away from (which is rare). Actually had already paid and was walking out and went back. It’s a Jason Fox something, just can’t remember. If you know, please help a sister out. I think this has real potential in the front vertical walk of the tank.

[DSFIRSTSLTWATER]

2 minutes ago, Cannedfish said:

Went to the store and this happened...  but I’m not too upset: one coral was on my need list; one coral was on my “maybe... if it happens we’ll keep the baby” list; and one coral was just a bad decision. 
 

Here are some really crappy iPhone pics:
 

 

Yay!! New corals 🤗

I really should hit up my spot and grab something. I wanna get my first acros but I'm scuuuurrred

[Cannedfish]

17 hours ago, DSFIRSTSLTWATER said:

Yay!! New corals 🤗

I really should hit up my spot and grab something. I wanna get my first acros but I'm scuuuurrred

Don't be scuuuuurred , I remember my first time, it was at a house party she was older but, no be scuuuurrrred acros are like crack... but more expensive and the buying “experience” consist of fewer sketchy gas stations and serial numberless guns. Or so I’ve read. Seriously though, crack is whack. Honestly, don’t be scared, like a hot tub... in aspen... in winter... dip your toes in gently, get a bonsai or green stag, let it acclimate and you’ll be fine.  Except,  10 months later you will be justifying the second homewrecker, have lost several teeth, be dating a “girl” named Chardonnay , and you and Chardonnay will be sleeping under the only overpass with an outlet. 
 

Okay, serious talk, acros are awesome. And if this dipstick (me) can (kinda) keep  them, you can grow them too. Yes, some can be finicky (smooth skins/ homewreckers), but once you’ve started and had a modicum of success, it will change the way you look at reef keeping. Sure you’re going to kill some in the beginning, much like real parenting, but in the end you will be a better hobbyist because of it. I say jump in. What’s the worst that can happen?

[DSFIRSTSLTWATER]

3 hours ago, Cannedfish said:

Don't be scuuuuurred , I remember my first time, it was at a house party she was older but, no be scuuuurrrred acros are like crack... but more expensive and the buying. “experience” consist of sketchy gas stations and serial numberless guns. Or so I’ve read. Seriously though, crack is whack. Honestly, don’t be scared, like a hot tub... in aspen... in winter... dip your toes in gently, get a bonsai or green stag, let it acclimate and you’ll be fine.  Except,  10 months later you will be justifying the second homewrecker, have lost several teeth, be dating a “girl” named Chardonnay , and you and Chardonnay will be sleeping under the only overpass with an outlet. 
 

Okay, serious talk, acros are awesome. And if this dipstick (me) can (kinda) keep  them, you can grow them too. Yes, some can be finicky (smooth skins/ homewreckers), but once you’ve started and had a modicum of success, it will change the way you look at reef keeping. Sure you’re going to kill some in the beginning, much like real parenting, but in the end you will be a better hobbyist because of it. I say jump in. What’s the worst that can happen?

Thanks man 👍. I'm leaning towards a milli or something like that. Or basically anything in my lfs 10-30 dollar tank 🤣.. no name is probably better