Tamberav Posted March 11, 2021 Share Posted March 11, 2021 Butterflies are beautiful AND intelligent 😍 1 Quote Link to comment
Islandoftiki Posted March 24, 2021 Author Share Posted March 24, 2021 Aloha from Scuba Club Cozumel, or should I say, Hola! We arrived 5 days ago and we've been diving for four days. It was a long trek from Hawaii, but it's been a lot of fun diving in a totally different environment from what we're used to on The Big Island. Here's a photo from our balcony. The pier is where the boats dock to pick us up to go diving. The room is beautiful and the view can't be beat. The grounds are very nice and there is unlimited shore diving in front of the resort. We did one short daytime short dive the first day we arrived and I found a mantis shrimp in the first 10 minutes! We didn't have our cameras, so we'll have to go back and find it again and get a photo to try to identify it. It was yellow, and looked like maybe a spearer, but I couldn't see it too well because it was small. Most of our dives have been daytime boat dives, and I'm still processing the photos of the boat dives. There are a lot of them but rest assured, I'll post them when I have time. Here's a teaser photo of what we saw on our night time shore dive from the Scuba Club Cozumel resort. Click on the link below for a slideshow of a few of the amazing things we saw! Slideshow of night diving photos 3 2 Quote Link to comment
melson Posted March 24, 2021 Share Posted March 24, 2021 It says the album is set to private 🤷♂️ Quote Link to comment
Islandoftiki Posted March 25, 2021 Author Share Posted March 25, 2021 6 hours ago, melson said: It says the album is set to private 🤷♂️ Argh... I'm not used to Photobucket's newer interface. It's set to public now. Check it out! And tonight, we had a very friendly interaction with an octopus and a cuttlefish! Video coming tomorrow! 2 Quote Link to comment
Cameron6796 Posted March 25, 2021 Share Posted March 25, 2021 Glad to see you back I just joined back recently too. It’s crazy how many names I remember still. Good to catch up and Hawaii looks like a dream! May consider Pamelas AIRBNB sometime 2 Quote Link to comment
Islandoftiki Posted March 25, 2021 Author Share Posted March 25, 2021 So, here you go. This happened. 3 4 Quote Link to comment
debbeach13 Posted March 25, 2021 Share Posted March 25, 2021 That video is just awesome. 3 Quote Link to comment
Islandoftiki Posted March 25, 2021 Author Share Posted March 25, 2021 1 hour ago, debbeach13 said: That video is just awesome. We had a good 7 minute interaction with the octopus before we decided it was ready for a break and we moved on. But on our way back, just before getting out, we saw this! 3 3 Quote Link to comment
Islandoftiki Posted March 25, 2021 Author Share Posted March 25, 2021 Some more highlights from last night's dive. Huge hermit crab, snake eel, lion fish and some more octopus footage. 3 Quote Link to comment
Islandoftiki Posted April 13, 2021 Author Share Posted April 13, 2021 It is alive! We have some inhabitants! Some are permanent, some are temporary. All are very happy to eat mysis and brine shrimp. So far, from a night time hand collection, we have a sand goby, a zebra blenny, a flag tail, a very pretty snail (need to ID). A few hermits, a few snails. A small brittle star. An Itty bitty tiny rock boring urchin, a pile of planktonic life and who knows what else? We spoke to a DLNR officer about legal collection and they said to be reasonable as long as no use of commercial collection nets. I used my bare hands and a small Tupperware container. We should be in full compliance. We're both jonesin' for a snowflake eel, so maybe in the next couple of weeks, we might find one. 6 2 Quote Link to comment
Islandoftiki Posted April 13, 2021 Author Share Posted April 13, 2021 The blenny is getting more comfortable even less than 48 hours into the tank. 5 Quote Link to comment
debbeach13 Posted April 13, 2021 Share Posted April 13, 2021 6 hours ago, Islandoftiki said: So far, from a night time hand collection, we have a sculpin? A zebra blenny, a flag tail, a very pretty snail (need to ID). A few hermits, a few snails. A small brittle star. An Itty bitty tiny rock boring urchin, a pile of planktonic life and who knows what else? Sure just go to the shore and grab a few things. BOOM the tank is stocked. That is Outstanding! 4 Quote Link to comment
A.m.P Posted April 13, 2021 Share Posted April 13, 2021 This is wonderful, thank you so much for letting us all tag along. 2 Quote Link to comment
Islandoftiki Posted April 14, 2021 Author Share Posted April 14, 2021 I'll try to do a dinner time video tomorrow. Everybody is eating well. I'm getting ready to scrape a bunch of coraline algae into the tank from some ocean trash tomorrow. Then, I'll get the lights fired up. I'm going to see if I can find someone locally who has some endemic soft corals that I can frag. Wish me luck, the saltwater aquarium community on The Big Island is pretty sparse. 3 Quote Link to comment
Islandoftiki Posted April 21, 2021 Author Share Posted April 21, 2021 I'm so sorry everyone, work got crazy busy, they just poured the concrete that surrounds our soon-to-be pool, and my fiance leaves for a month to go diving on a live-aboard boat in Egypt tomorrow, followed immediately by a trip to Botswana for a safari with her mom. Hash tag covid travel deals. No joke, this is a once in a lifetime chance to visit these places before they are busy again and at a quarter of price. Anyhow, I'll share the highlights of her dive trip when she gets home. In the meantime, I'm a little overwhelmed at how well this 5 gallon tank is doing considering how new it is. This tank's ugly stage ended 36 hours after I added the critters. My main concern now is making sure they are well fed because they've cleaned all of the rock work bare. Rest assured that they are getting fed well. Also, water parameters are good. I'm letting nitrates and phosphate rise a little bit to encourage some algae growth, even though the blenny loves any kind of food. I'm also giving a few algae pellets as well. 8 Quote Link to comment
melson Posted April 21, 2021 Share Posted April 21, 2021 Everyone looks happy and healthy! I forgot what you said, is there any possibility for corals or no? Quote Link to comment
Islandoftiki Posted April 21, 2021 Author Share Posted April 21, 2021 7 minutes ago, melson said: I forgot what you said, is there any possibility for corals or no? Hawaii bans taking/keeping all stony corals, but soft corals are ok. The challenge is that it's a ratio of about 99% stony coral to 1% soft corals here, so it may take a little while to collect some. We have zoas, palys and leather corals, not sure if there are any other kinds, those are the main ones you can find though. Of course no corals can be imported. I'm also going to keep an eye out for macro algae, too. 2 Quote Link to comment
DISQUALIFIED-QQ Posted April 21, 2021 Share Posted April 21, 2021 On 3/25/2021 at 10:20 AM, Islandoftiki said: We had a good 7 minute interaction with the octopus before we decided it was ready for a break and we moved on. But on our way back, just before getting out, we saw this! Cuttlefish! Their bodies are generally thicker and the fins run along the entire mantle. Y'all definitely got your cephalopods on! Quote Link to comment
Islandoftiki Posted April 22, 2021 Author Share Posted April 22, 2021 9 hours ago, Diamonds x Pearls said: Cuttlefish! Their bodies are generally thicker and the fins run along the entire mantle. Y'all definitely got your cephalopods on! Best 25 minute dive ever. Maybe one of our all time favorite dives of the past year. Well, for me anyway. Pamela was in the Galapagos with hundreds of hammerheads earlier this year and is en route to Egypt for a live-aboard dive trip as we type, but I digress. We can't get enough cephalopods in our life. Have I posted a picture of her "Tako Truck" on here yet? 2 Quote Link to comment
DISQUALIFIED-QQ Posted April 22, 2021 Share Posted April 22, 2021 14 hours ago, Islandoftiki said: Best 25 minute dive ever. Maybe one of our all time favorite dives of the past year. Well, for me anyway. Pamela was in the Galapagos with hundreds of hammerheads earlier this year and is en route to Egypt for a live-aboard dive trip as we type, but I digress. We can't get enough cephalopods in our life. Have I posted a picture of her "Tako Truck" on here yet? I don't think so, but I am guessing it's the local takoyaki vendor? I'm down once I'm fully vaxxed. Quote Link to comment
Islandoftiki Posted May 1, 2021 Author Share Posted May 1, 2021 Aloha gang! I just finished getting ready to go diving tomorrow. I heard from Pamela tonight. She's in Egypt and just finished her first week on a live-aboard dive boat. She's currently on a 3 hour taxi ride to the next leg of another week on a live-aboard dive boat. Unfortunately her internet bandwidth is so bad that there's no chance of uploading and dive videos while she's there. Text messages are going through fairly reliably, but we tried to Skype voice call or Facebook messenger voice call, but, "hello? Hello? Can you hear me? “ was about as far as we got. So, I'm taking the Olympus TG-6 with me tomorrow, but Pamela took all of the dive lights with her, so I have limited lighting at depth. Maybe I can get a few good photos with the flash. Stay tuned! 2 Quote Link to comment
Tamberav Posted May 1, 2021 Share Posted May 1, 2021 Catching up.... That octopus video is just amazing, I love how he/she is as curious as you are. Have you seen Octopus teacher on Netflix? The tank is also looking great and the fish seem to have settled right in. I love the blenny and it's typical funny blenny looks and behavior 🙂 2 Quote Link to comment
Islandoftiki Posted May 16, 2021 Author Share Posted May 16, 2021 Aloha gang! Long time no update! Well, the tank got a really big upgrade today. I added an Apex EL to the tank and finally got all of the wiring sorted out. Check this out! This blows my old ReefKeeper out of the water, by a longshot. Check out these sweet drip loops. And here's a full tank shot: Next major upgrade is going to be installing an 80mm ventilation fan into the cabinet and moving the chiller to somewhere less conspicuous, All of the critters are doing great so far. More updates immediately to come... 3 1 Quote Link to comment
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