Short and sweet, after being gone for almost a week, and preparing to transfer in a mate this weekend, I thought I should take a quick snapshot of my water quality.
pH – 8.2
Alkalinity – 4.25 meq/L
Calcium – 420 ppm
Magnesium – 1170 ppm
Nitrate – approximately 2.5-5 ppm.
I’m continuing to dose C-Balance 2 part, although for a few days while I was gone I asked Frank to suspend the doses as I was getting emails about the pH being to high (via the Apex Lite controller…yes, insurance policy equipment added on before my vacation – more on that later). I’ve since resumed 2-3 doses per day and haven’t seen the pH getting excessively high – the big difference is I’m dosing late at night and in the morning before the lights go on. Given the slightly lower Magnesium reading, I dosed the tank with Seachem Magnesium tonight.
There’s been an explosion of baby Stomatella snails in the tank – I witnessed them spawning the day I added on the Vortech MP10w ES circulation pump (another of several equipment-related posts I still need to find the time to write up!). Coral colors are restoring (I had some bleaching going on) although the Astralomussas I have remain bleached out but not dead (so there IS hope I suppose) – Jay thinks it was my getting the lights on a timer and lowering the photoperiod (the main LEDs are now on for 11 hours – I may cut to 10 soon). Overall, corals are growing and doing well – the biggest problem is the Turbo snails knocking everything over even when it’s glued down or buried. I’m looking forward to soon being able to remove these snails from the tank, as the hair algae crisis seems to have been solved.
Oh and that “damage” I thought I’d have to live with on the Lightning Maroon – it’s healing up.
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- F1 PNG White Stripe Maroon Clownfish, WS11
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Browsing Posts published by TheLightningProject
Back to back “wins” for the Lightning Maroon Clownfish as it’s photoshopped kin succeed in fooling many aquarists for a second year in a row!
No doubt you may recall the annoucement of a “Third” Lightning Maroon being collected on April 1st, 2010.
This amazing piece of artwork was done by Guin Apora and honestly had me fooled immediately. Nothing more than a cell phone image of a juvenile Maroon combined with embelished copies of the actual Lightning Maroon, throw a little grain on there and viola…an exceptional fake. Even after I knew it was an April Fool’s prank, I think it took a solid week for me to accept that in fact, it was a prank. Why? Well, I kinda wondered if the “prank” wasn’t in saying that this was real, but instead telling ME that it wasn’t!
Learning from this experience, and knowing that Reef Builders has a longstanding tradition of April Fool’s stories, I sat down and thought about it a bit. The Lightning Maroon seemed an obvious target, but perhaps the fact that it had already been done made it the ideal candidate…who’d expect 2 years in a row. I instantly had a couple images in mind…shots of baby maroons from other breeder’s fishrooms, that might lend themselves to some creative photoshopping (afterall, I’m formally trained in Photoshop and have been using it since I was in my teens…if I can’t pull of a plausible fake, I should probably resign from my day job).
In the end, it was my recent trip to Portland that singled out David Durr, my host and a fellow marine breeder, as my target. I had his Maroon image in very high rez from a collection of shots he sent to me for my fishroom talk. I also had other supporting info…other images, and a solid secondary story that is fully legit to further encourage buy-in. The best part – I never told him I was going to do this.
So in the end, the Reef Builders 2011 Lightning Maroon Clowns in Portland story ran. Here was the headline image:
David found out about the post with 2 back-to-back phone calls, including one inquiry from a customer who wanted to order some and indeed, a bit of frustration that he had indeed been “holding out” on his loyal clients! David’s own club caught wind in short order. Of course, my personal favorite was the optimistic buy-in of some Reef-Geeks.com members – any post that starts with “HOLY CRAP” tells me the prank was a smashing success!
Of course, given the 2010 prank’s success (yes, there are still people today who think that there was a THIRD Lightning Maroon collected), I figured I should really squelch this one pretty quickly with some undeniable, irrefutable proof that indeed, this was a classic prank and no, as much as I like David Durr and Clownfish Northwest, they don’t have any Lightning Maroons at this time. But they do have some really nice Picasso and Platinum Percs, so maybe you should still give ’em a call!
For anyone who thinks the prank was not a prank, here’s the original image (courtesy David Durr)
And yes, I’m pretty sure that even with this undeniable post, I probably just added to the mystery and misinformation surrounding the Lightning Maroon for years to come 😉
Just before heading out of town to speak at PNWMAS in Portland, Tal Sweet and I had the opportunity to do an interview with Kevin Erickson for MASNA Live. The main thrust of the podcast is the MBI and MBI Workshop, but the Lightning Project got a little sidebar early in the interview. Always fun to talk about and promote captive breeding (yes, I’m a bit biased). You can grab the MP3 here – http://recordings.talkshoe.com/TC-74311/TS-469517.mp3
This is why aquarists don’t like going out of town:
Lighting Maroon after the damage has mostly healed, shot 3-14-2011
And yet, I still have an upcoming trip to talk at PNWMAS this weekend. Since I am only now really recovered from truly abnormal overtime (I think I worked a month’s worth of hours in the first half of the month?) I figured I at least owed you all an image of the damage that was inflicted on the Lightning Maroon while I was speaking in Dallas / Fort Worth at the end of February.
In addition to the remaining damage you see in the spiny dorsal, the soft dorsal and anal were all frayed, but as you can see 2 weeks later all of that damage had fully healed. I do not know if, or when, the spiny dorsal will heal, but I can say I’m holding onto hope. On January 26th, 2011, I received a Four Eyed Butterflyfish (Chaetodon capistratus) from Sea Life Inc that had similar, although not quite as extensive damage to a thick front dorsal spine. I figured it would stay that way for the rest of its life. By the end of February, it had fully grown in.
In the grand scheme of things, this damage doesn’t matter one bit. The genetics are certainly intact regardless. It’s just a “bummer” because not only is this a special fish, it is a one-of-a-kind fish, and I’m picky about the overall quality of my fish to begin with. Ironically, I also have to acknowledge that much worse could yet happen during pairing if it doesn’t go well, so I better not get too riled up about it (but I may just have to Photoshop my pictures from now on!!!)
Given the family schedule, pairing is now slated to be attempted again on the First of April (yeah, April Fool’s day…).
Pretty straightforward. It’s been 5 days since I came home and panicked at a missing Lightning Maroon. I honestly couldn’t bear to take pictures of it all shredded up, but thankfully most has healed and it is only the spine dorsal damage that remains…will it heal is anyone’s guess.
I’ve been “practicing” pairing Maroons in the basement. I took the Female Maroon I got from Debbie in the Twin Cities (I think the fish’s name is Lucy…I’ll have to go look). I tried pairing a significantly smaller white stripe that I got in trade from a local hobbyist (Ryan), who also brought along a slightly larger white stripe that he had been trying to pair the smaller one with. My test pairing of Ryan’s “male” White Stripe Maroon Clownfish with Debbie’s “female” didn’t go so well…the larger maroon basically took random pot shots at the smaller one, occasionally chasing it around the tank. After a couple hours, I separated the two…the smaller “male” was placed in a specimen cup that has a lot of holes drilled in it. The two could now interact but can’t have physical contact. The next day I was working on the tanks and heard some pretty viscous whacks as the larger maroon attacked the specimen cup. Since then however, I haven’t noticed much animosity between the two. I may try releasing the smaller one again to see if things work now. I am honestly expecting that I’ll have to do this same thing with the Lightning and the smaller male I chose to get it to work. by the same token, I’ve noticed the two other PNG Maroons (who’ve been separated for months) seem to be kinda hanging out together now at the screen that separates the two of them. Perhaps I finally have a pair there? Only way to find out will be another introduction and I’ll probably know pretty quickly.
The algae is slowly coming under control via the addition of the Turbo Grazers (Turbo fluctousa supposedly). In the Lightning’s last tank, they would often be found crawling around on top of his “cage”, feeding on algae while partially exposed – a clue as to their intertidal nature. I think they NEED this, and the current setup of the Ecoxotic with its tight lid allows them to venture up above the water should they feel the need.
Today was literally my first opportunity to test the water since my new test kits arrived. I opted to continue with the Seachem test for pH and total Alkalinity…I’ve found them to be VERY easy to use. I also ordered a Salifert Magnesium test kit to replace the Seachem one that had obviously gone out of date and wasn’t accurate. Meanwhile I’ve been dosing C-Balance routinely, generally 2 or 3 times per day, knowing I was using it up before. Here’s how the water tested out at lunch:
pH – 8.3
Total Alkalinity – 5 meq/L
Calcium – 415 ppm
Magnesium – 1215 ppm
Nitrate – 0 ppm (undetectable either at low or medium resolution – gin clear)
Might have to break out the Phosphate test kit…kinda stumped what caused the hair algae explosion in the tank while I was away.
It’s now 1:00 AM on March 2nd. The reason you hadn’t heard about the February 28th planned move of the Lightning Maroon into the new final digs is that it didn’t happen yet. Short and sweet – left Thursday for Dallas and Next Wave (put on by DFWMAS). The plan was to be back on Sunday night. Of course, due to freezing rain, I got stranded in Chicago. Of course, flights to Duluth are sporadic and with the cancellation, I think the direct Monday flight was booked before I even managed to get off the plane! So TWO days spent in Chicago to get a flight home…thankfully the company I work for is in Chicago so I spent 2 days at the office and with family.
Well, finally, after a very over extended trip, I return home. Everyone is asleep but my wife wakes up to welcome me home. The first thing I notice in my rounds is that the Ecoxotic has been taken over by hair algae in just 5 short days. I go downstairs to check on the fish and turn off the lights. When I get to the Lightning Maroon’s cage, it is nowhere to be found. I think my eyes are playing tricks on me, so I pull the cage out of the tank. It’s EMPTY.
Surprisingly, I think I handled it pretty well. I asked my wife if she had seen the fish and she said she hadn’t noticed it go missing but hadn’t been paying really close attention. I wound up tearing apart the entire tank (lights were already out) and after a little bit of searching, found the Lightning Maroon tucked in the back. I netted it and then noticed that its fins were quite tattered…definitely the result of being in the tank with the 3 Centropyge argi.
So, “screw it”. The Lightning Maroon was moved tonight. It was drip acclimated which resulted in a 5 gallon water change. 3 large Turbo snails from the Lightning’s original home were brought over as well to help deal with the hair algae issue. I removed the carbon and the skimmer cup and dosed the tank with Maracyn as a preventative and to knock back a little bit of Cyanobacteria (red slime) that was also showing up in the tank.
Frankly, how a fish gets out of a well-covered cage is beyond me. Of course, last week I found the crispy body of a female Mandarin who ALSO managed to jump out of a screen-covered tank. And if I had to place a guess, I think this escape of the Lightning Maroon of course, likely happened today, and it wouldn’t have happened if my flight home hadn’t been canceled and the fish was moved on time.
On the bright side, the fish is moved (the Labrador Maroon was returned to the tank with the 3 Centropyge argi). I’m truly ticked at myself for not having moved it before I left, but then again we all also know the advice that you never make big changes in the week before a trip. This experience just goes to show how even when everything is done right, things WILL go wrong in this hobby. I’m bummed that the fish is tattered and honestly a bit worried that the splits in the spiny dorsal fin may not heal…a reminder of this incident going forward. I HOPE that isn’t the case, but as a hobbyist, I’ll have to learn to roll with it. It is just as likely that there will be MORE tattered fins and bruised fish when I attempt the first pairing…possibly later this week although I may wait until the Lightning is well healed.
So that’s the update. Fish moved, but things are not in tip-top shape at the moment. Working on fixing them.
Ecoxotic FTS - 2-15-2011
Yeah, I took a small chunk of my birthday money and ordered corals for the tank. While I really, really would’ve liked to pull the trigger on some of the fantastic Goneastreas that have been showing up in the LiveAquaria.com Diver’s Den, I really can’t spend that kind of money on coral for this tank.
So…I turned to eBay and found a seller from Peoria, IL, who goes by “woosaquatics123″. What clued me into this vendor was a relatively good feedback rating (I always go see what any negatives and neutrals say, knowing that the one negative feedback I ever got from a buyer was a buyer who didn’t have a clue what he was talking about on a WISIWYG auction that even had a RULER in the picture). That, and when viewing completed listings, it seemed that most frags sold for the opening bid. I have a feeling that after this post, that might not be the case. Of course, woosaquatics123 also had multiple small Goneastrea / Favia frags that were of interest to me, including a small 2 head frag of the “Reverse Prism Goneastreas” that have been showing up in the Diver’s Den. I hate to say it, but $10 for a frag vs. $200 for a colony…sometimes you just have to pull the trigger on the $10 frag.
In the end, I lost a couple things that would’ve been nice to win (like a beautiful little Pink Goniopora) but I got my “colored chips”. The score included an 2 polyp Aussie Reverse Prism Goneastrea, a 1 head beg-and-plead frag of Dragon Soul, a surprisingly stunning LE Joker Goneastrea, a Red/Green or Brown/Aquamarine Platygyra maze brain (color really varies with light), a nice Aussie red green and purple Blastomussa wellsi, a good sized chunk of Sympodium (fell in love the very first time I saw it) for 1/3 the going rate, and another surprisngly stunning Aussie Goneastrea that seemed kinda “normal” in pictures and has teal eyes and green skin. There was also a mix-up…I got sent a Favites that I hadn’t bid on instead of another Favites I had bid on. You know it’s a good seller when they say “keep the frag” and refund the payment for the coral you didn’t get.
Opening up a box from Woos Aquatics.
In fact, I’ve withheld this post until my next round of auctions close. Yeah, those things I missed were up again, as well as more pieces of some of the things that I really, really liked. I don’t need to encourage potential competition! Insurance frags. That, and in a composition, it’s usually recommended to “reuse” certain elements in the piece more than once. Ideally at least three times. And so…no harm in having more than one piece of the same thing.
Here’s most of the corals added on 2-15-2011:
The "mistake" Favites - 2-15-2011
Aussie Goneastrea - 2-15-2011
Platygyra - 2-15-2011
Dragon Soul Favia / Goneastrea - 2-15-2011
Aussie Reverse Prism Goneastrea - 2-15-2011
Aussie Blastomussa wellsi - 2-15-2011
LE Joker Goneastrea - 2-15-2011
Some additional shots of corals that I traded fish for on 2-12-2011:
Green/Pink/Purple Birdsnest Colony from Cosmic Aquatics - 2-12-2011
Incredible Hulk Clove Polyps from Cosmic Aquatics - 2-12-201
Sour Apple Birdsnest from Cosmic Aquatics - 2-12-2011
And finally, a couple more full tank shots of the Ecoxotic 25 gallon LED Aquarium System….
Ecoxotic FTS - 2-15-2011
Ecoxotic FTS - 2-15-2011
One final note – every coral that goes into this tank is going through a pre-treatment with Seachem Reef Dip. I’d be an idiot not to.
Tested again this morning – Calcium on the Salifert was down to 425 ppm and that was after another day’s worth of dosing 3 X .25 ml/gallon of C-Balance. Hmm. Did I just use 10 ppm of calcium overnight, or is it really just that there’s a certain margin of error with the test kit? Hard to say. So once again, I’ll dose the three doses of 0.25 ml/L of the two part and see where that gets me tomorrow AM again.
On another front, I was going to move the Lightning Maroon up today, but I was reminded of timeless advice that more than one good aquarist has given over the years. Never make any drastic changes in the week leading up to a vacation. While I’m not going on vacation, I AM going to be in Dallas, Texas, next weekend to speak at the 2011 DFWMAS Next Wave event. Still, I asked my wife simply “should I move the fish up or should I wait until I get back” and without hesitation, she said “wait”. Clearly, waiting is what I will be doing. February 28th will be the drop date for the Lighting Maroon (unless water tests determine otherwise).
I’m continuing to get the tank “dialed in” as they say. Thursday and Friday I dosed the tank 3 times per day with .25 ML / gallon (6 ML) of each C-Balance 2-part solution. Thursday evening, Jay stopped by and brought his Salifert test kit for Magnesium. We ran it side by side with my Seachem Magnesium test kit. The results were pretty dramatic.
My Seachem test, which is probably 3-4 years old, tested out at 950 ppm again. Jay’s Salifert test kit came out in the 1200 range. That’s a BIG difference. Of course, it makes me wonder, and it speaks to a general wisdom that test kits don’t last forever. Arguably, use ’em or lose ’em! Makes me think the Nitrite readings (< 0.1 ppm) are nevertheless false. It is probably time to just go buy a new base test kit as the few I have are now all quite old. Afterall, how often do you test for Nitrite once things are really doing well?
So this morning, Saturday, I tested the water for 2 things:
Salifert Calcium – 435 ppm
Seachem pH = 8.1
Based on the math from Wednesday’s test, dosing with .75 ml /gallon two part over the course of a day will raise up the Calcium level by 10 ppm per day. Based on the subsequent 2 days of dosing, that would’ve brought it up to 440 ppm. To test out at 435 ppm could easily be within the margin of error for the test, or could also represent an update rate of 2.5 ppm calcium daily.
So for today, I’ll once again do the 3 doses for the day and see where I come out in the morning. I’m also thinking that today might be an OK day to move the Lighting Maroon into the tank. We shall see…
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