Samantha's 47 Gallon Macroalgae DT

And while you're over, maybe I could buy another formosa frag from you...

How about trade a formosa for some brine shrimp eggs??

Did the formosa I gave you bite the dust, or do you just want two?

Deal with me! but I seriously don't mind paying for one.. especially if it would have cost more than $5.. Cause the brine shrimp only cost me $15

And nope, its still alive, I just really like it and would like to get a second as a "insurance policy" in case something decides to happen..

No, it's cool. Sounds like a fair swap to me. How long are the brine shrimp eggs good for? I'm not sure when I could make it out to your house...

i think it said 15 years.. they're incredibly indestructable!

Good to know! I've got a big presentation that I'm giving tomorrow in my lab, and I think I'm busy Saturday. Maybe Sunday or sometime next week. I'll get back to you...

P.S. Isn't that smiley AWESOME?!!!!

Next week would work best!

And yes, I love that smiley!!!

Yeah, this weekend got real busy for me. Family stuff and whatnot. I'll check out how next week looks, and get back with you on what day might work.

Thanks again for the brine shrimp eggs, Eric! And the bagels!!

Just two pics that I took a week or so ago that I thought were cool...

Macro of the gorgonian:


Macro of the macro (Red Grape):

Well, I've got some good news and bad news. Bad news first...

Unfortunately, the halimedas died, the codium died, and so did all of the brown macros (scroll and dictoya). I believe the halimedas and codium died from shipping stress, but I'm not sure what happened to the brown macros. The different macro colors require different parameters, and I think my lighting or something may have been too much for them. I had a bit of brown macros still hanging in there until we left out of town to the beach for a week and my ATO quit on me...

The good news, is that the other macros are doing really well. The red macros seem to be the happiest. And, even better news! While we were at the beach this past week, I found a lot of new awesome macros that I added to the tank.

Here are some pics of the new additions:

Some more Red Gracilaria:


Codium:


Halymenia:


Turtle Grass:


Sargassum:



Hopefully all of these new macros will do well. I think one of the gracilarias sporulated yesterday. It's now pretty pale, and my tank is is a little cloudy. Other than that, they all look pretty good.

Here are a couple more shots of the gorgonian. I've never kept a gorg before, and so I'm really enjoying keeping one for the first time. The poylp extension on the gorg keeps getting better, and I saw some pretty long sweeper tentacles out for the first time this week.

Pics:

Beautiful pictures. I love colorful things

Thank you!

Some FTS's...

Just White LEDs:




White and Blue LEDs:




Glamour Shot

I bought my first fish for this aquarium yesterday. I got two green mandarins. Neither are trained to eat frozen food yet, so that's going to be a struggle. The male has been picking at pods all day, but I haven't seen the female eating. I'm a little worried, but maybe they just need some time to adjust to the aquarium.

I'll try to post some pics of them soon, and I'll keep you all updated on their eating habits. I tried Melev's jar trick today with some live brine, frozen brine, and pellets. The female went in it, but didn't eat anything. I'm going to start raising some homemade brine for them in the next few days (thanks again, Eric).

Well you're going to have to hold on pics of the mandarins. I made an oopsie. It turns out, I bought two male mandarins on accident.

I thought I bought a male and a female mandarin like I wanted, but apparently not. The one that I thought was a female hadn't flashed her dorsal fin, so I thought it was a female. Ever since I put the mandarins in my aquarium, they'd been chasing each other. I kept thinking to myself, " Aww...how cute" and picturing Pepe Le Pew. Turns out, they weren't love birds, they were trying to attack each other. One of the males grabbed a hold of what I thought was the female mandarin's tail fin and wouldn't let go for about 10 seconds. That's when the mandarin finally flashed its dorsal fin, and I realized that I had bought two males on accident.

The good news is, I managed to catch one of the males this evening, and I took it back to Corals and Fins to swap it for a REAL female mandarin. I missed WOW Week's Burgers and Bands which sucks, but at least I was able to catch the fish before the war between the two males got too intense. And, yes, I'm positive I finally purchased a female. She showed off a nice lovely rounded dorsal fin this evening.

Hopefully, the new pair of mandarins will get along. I'm not sure they've found each other yet. The aquarium is pretty big and there's a lot of macros and rock. I'll try to get some pics in the next few days and keep you all updated.

I wish you the best of luck with the Mandarins!

Thanks!

Any luck getting pictures of the mandarins?

No. I don't think they like me.

I took some pics of them dripping in the bucket that I can post, but I haven't had luck getting any good pictures of them in the aquarium. They look healthy. They are always fluttering around looking for pods and eating my homemade baby brine. But, whenever I come near the tank, they swim into the rockwork...

Play Possum on'em, and catch'em off guard!

Yeah, sure. I'll try that.

I like the fts!

how'd those red macro's i gave you ever do? The spiney one has kept his own in my tank but the flame looking one is entirely gone..

Thanks, Eric! The red grape is doing really well, the spiney one has turned pink in my aquarium (it's close to the LEDs), and I've got one strip of the flame one left. It's the flame one and the halymenia that I can't get to stay put, so they keep getting shredded in the Koralias...