[Triggers]

How's your tank and dogs doing?

[Joaco]

Thanks a lot Trigg.
Dogs are doing great, I send them both to my father's home for a while, they were giving my wife too much work (she is 6 months pregnant now, we are expecting a daughter, Barbara).
The male Husky developed a taste for gardner meat, especially legs and butt. My father will probably have to rotate gardners to give the dog a better menu to choose from


I had to take the 75 gal tank down, it was in what now is going to be the baby room.
The 200 gal is in the living room and is slowly going reef, I brought the first corals from NY last year (mainly cuttings from Sole), and the second batch of corals from Germany last week. I will bring a third batch from South Africa end October (also in person).
I DIY a lot of cement LR, it's still curing. Tomorrow I will check for pH for the first time since I made it some 2 months ago, let's see how it turns out.


I had some hair algae trouble because my wife fed the tank too much while I was in Germany, but it's solved now.
The fish in the 200 gal are a mated pair of percula clows, a bicolor blenny and a Flame angel (brought from NY). I have stilll have a cleaner shrimp from NY (fire shrimp was KIA by a friend by mistake while I was on vacations in Brazil in January), so I bought another pair of cleaners and a pair of fire shrimps in Germany as well.

Customs at arrival was very easy this time. They asked what I had in the handbag (looked almost empty under the X rays). Oh, just bags with water, I said. That was all, they let me pass just like that.

The country is still a mess here, and I don't think it will improve in the short term. So many want out of here, that the Police run out of paper for the passports for some days, seriously. I have German passport, so I don't care much, but still...

Bandidos are starting to wear bullet proof vest too (stolen from cops, as well as the handguns), very bad sign.
Literally everyday a bank gets robbed in downtown.
My sister got my father's car stolen two days ago, at a mall. She parked, and from a BMW (?!) next to her a guy made her return to the car and made her drive two blocks, then made her leave the car (you can't imagine how lucky she was!)
The brother of my secretary was waiting at a red light, when a guy broke the left passenger window to get his briefcase out. The driver hit gas, and pureed the robber against a wall with the side of the car. When he went to the police to tell what happened, they told him to leave immediatly, wash the car and have it repaired. They would have given him a medal if they had one...
How's everything at your end, besides of the anger about the towers attack?

Joaco

[Joaco]

I forgot to tell you that I gave all my other fish to a friend, we set up a 100 gal FO tank in his office. He is very happy with it, he got hooked after snorkeling in Hawaii for the first time. It took him a while (and $$) to learn not to trust the LFS over here, but he learned the lesson the hard way.

[scubadude]

I would love to see some pics of your LR you made.....Im fixing to make a huge batch....any new tips? Glad to see you back....In one piece

[ScottC]

I'm happy to see you're back in action. How is Sole?

Talk to you soon!

Scott

[Triggers]

things goin pretty good.
not much change in tank. thinking about building a theater room in basement and eventually customizing a 300 or so gallon tank to put down there. hey, we can all dream cant we.....

going reef are ya... well probably the nicest and most natural looking setup... but the limitations in fish is what is keeping that on the long back burner for me.

sounds like a unstable country you live in over there. stay safe..

congats on the baby..your life will never be the same again. but for the better...and maybe can give ya some assistance with tank.
in about 7 years...LOL

Let me know if you need anymore supplies or anything.

thought of Sole, know she works in trading or something. glad she wasnt there.

later.

[ccull]

has someone heard from sole!? i've been fighting a certain OS vendor's latest virii for the last few weeks and thus have been out of pocket...

[Joaco]

Originally posted by scubadude
I would love to see some pics of your LR you made.....Im fixing to make a huge batch....any new tips? Glad to see you back....In one piece

Thanks

I will include pics on my webpage when I find the time for it, I have to tell you that the pasta thing worked out *PERFECT*. Of course I will include a link to your DIY LR page

What I can tell you is that I included 'bug pipes' inside the cement LR. The idea comes from MRR (another reefer friend of mine). You will see what I mean as soon as I post the pics, they basically work as mini-refugiums inside the DIY LR.

[Joaco]

Will post again tomorrow, the 'puter is playing some really dirty tricks on me right now.

Joaco

[nucleuscracker]

Joaco:

So does that mean you are going to be updating your webpage?


I feel like a kid in a candy store......


Got any new pics of your 200 gallon other then one that is like 8 months old?



welcome back BTW

[Joaco]

Originally posted by ScottC
I'm happy to see you're back in action. How is Sole?

Talk to you soon!

Scott

Thanks Scott
Sole is fine, she is back at work at the Wall Street area, with tons of work to do (mainly because of the market).
Unfortunately, she told me friends of her died in the attacks.


Joaco

[Joaco]

Thanks Triggers.
300 gal tank sounds great, be sure you get a filtration room behind it, I would really do that if you can. It's a PITA for me to put all the equipment under my 200 gal, just the 20 gal algae tank takes half of the room under the main tank. Waterchanges would be WAY easier (and cleaner, I still can't avoid some water on the floor when I do waterchanges), you would have more room to place the skimmer, etc, etc. Especially if the tank would go in the room with a home teather, which is exactly my idea when I move to a house one day. Right now, I'm VERY limited with weight in the tank, remember it's on a 6th floor.
I would say I regret it a bit now, having it made so tall (for the department). Because it was going to be FO, I had it made as big as it would fit in the elevator. Now that it went reef, adding 300 pounds of LR would probably send the floor (tank included) to the guy in the floor below.
That's another one of the reasons why I made the cement LR, it's more like a structure that is hollow inside, than just solid pieces of cement. Even so...it's not that light, LOL

Right now, I'm following your tip from months ago: "but sweetie, if I don't buy this or that, the corals and fishies will die and the baby won't be happy"
Have to tell you it works like a *charm* so far, hehe


Joaco

[Joaco]

Originally posted by ccull
has someone heard from sole!? i've been fighting a certain OS vendor's latest virii for the last few weeks and thus have been out of pocket...

Hey El Guapo!
Sole is fine, please see the post above. Are you getting back in the hobby? I can hear that little voice saying it on the back of your head: get another tank, get another tank....

Joaco

[Joaco]

Originally posted by nucleuscracker
Joaco:

So does that mean you are going to be updating your webpage?


I feel like a kid in a candy store......


Got any new pics of your 200 gallon other then one that is like 8 months old?



welcome back BTW

Thanks

Yes, I will update the whole webpage in the coming weeks.
Sure have new pics of the 200 gallon tank, at least now there is water in there already
There isn't much to see in there yet, but everything is super healty, fish and corals. But the basic setup under the tank is ready, I had to play around with some things there before I was pleased. I'm still not 100% pleased with everything, but I'm getting much closer.
Too much to do, so many ideas... but so little time, you know the story (or the excuse)

Joaco

[hai42]

Hello Joaco,

Good to see you again! I haven't been here for a long time. Sorry to read about all the craziness in Argentina, we have lots of trouble here as well. Congratulations and be safe.

Peter