Time Flies

My oh my, it's been a long time. I didn't realize it's been over 2 years - holy crap. As it happens so often in our hobby, life has been extremely busy. Work has been pretty crazy, and I got married in 2012. My tank has not gotten the attention it was getting before.

My LED array still going strong and I haven't had to touch it a single time. Knock on wood! By now I would have had to replace several bulbs in a MH or T5 setup.

I am going through my first run-in with Aiptasia currently, and I'm not quite sure how to handle it. I would love to get a couple of proven peppermint shrimp to take care of the problem but I have a rather large and ornery Mithrax crab that is cleaning my rocks, and a rather small but still quite ornery sixline wrasse who owns the tank. I don't think dainty shrimp would do too well in the tank right now, so I might have to go with chemical warfare.

A lot of the coral has changed places, died, or has been introduced since my last update. It's not in any condition to show off right now (I have a Mithrax for a reason), but I did just get a nice extender tube, tripod, and remote shutter for my Canon 60D so I will be putting it to the test once the tank is back up to snuff.

For anyone curious... I had a horrible run-in with fate, and my digital thermometer died at the same time as my heater. I realized the heater was bad, but not that the thermometer was reading over ten degrees off. I replaced the heater and began trying to calibrate it using my thermometer, which was reporting the temperature to be in the mid seventies (the Jager heaters need to be calibrated when they're initially installed).

Naturally as I dialed in the heater, the water got warmer and warmer and I didn't have a reference. I'm amazed the corals lasted as long as they did but I had no idea that there was a problem until I brought my coral to a friend's house for safe keeping during my Europe trip. Even after being in tupperware for ten minutes during the drive over, I immediately noticed a huge temperature difference between my water and his. Mine was 5-10 degrees warmer!

In the end I lost over half of my livestock to this- some of my favorite corals and specimens I was very proud of having nurtured to double or triple their size. I lost the Duncanopsammia axifuga colony that I brought from three little polyps to a giant 30+ cluster... I am bummed out just thinking about it even a year after.

I chalk this up to inexperience and lack of preparation. Now I always have multiple thermometers (both digital and floaty old-fashioned ones) to prevent this kind of thing from happening again, and I am very careful with new heaters.

Now if I could only get my alk back up to where it's supposed to be!