[Ninong]

Originally Posted by zhenya

Sorry to say,Ninong, but I do not remember seen this TV show.Don't forget,I came to this country in 1979

It was on from 1960 - 1964.

I hate to admit it but I remember when TV first came out. It was a little roundish screen in a gigantic console radio cabinet and it came on at 6 p.m. and went off at 9 p.m. There were only two networks, NBC and CBS, and the news lasted all of 15 minutes. The first programs were not much different that radio programs except that you got to see the people trying to read their lines from cue cards instead of just listening to them. The first TV shows were pretty lousy. "I Love Lucy" was the first really successful TV show and the first one filmed with three cameras instead of just one.

[zhenya]

Originally Posted by Ninong

It was on from 1960 - 1964.

Well, there you go. I have good memory after all...I just forgot about it.


You edited your post,George, and now my post makes no sence.
I do remember when I fist saw a TV,about 1965 I think. My father took me and my two brothers to watch a movie or something to his friends house becouse we did not have a television set. Now,what I saw I do not remember

[almostdiva]

C'mon, Ninong!

I was reading the other thread (Gene's calerpa thread I think... ) about your trip to the LFS and I'm betting you got goodies. I just checked back to see if there is anything new in this one -- ONLY to find banter about the early days of TV.

This is all well and good, but not nearly as fun as shots of whatever it is you came home with.

To steal a line from "Jerry McGuire": "show us the fishy!"

Rebecca

[Ninong]

Patience, patience, patience.

I did come home with some goodies, including one of the fishy persuasion yesterday.

My sister's digital camera needs a new battery and my brother-in-law is going to pick up one for me this afternoon. There's no big rush because Primus' new roommate hasn't come out from the protection of the caves yet anyway. I want to get a good picture of him first before I disclose his identity.

[blown63chevy]

It appears that the identity of the new arrival is turning into somewhat of a mystery.
How long will Ninong keep us in suspense?

Ray

[almostdiva]

Originally Posted by Ninong

Patience, patience, patience.

I am NOT , despite playing around in this hobby (which is supposed to "give you patience"), a patient woman, generally speaking <sigh>

I did come home with some goodies, including one of the fishy persuasion yesterday.

I KNEW IT!!!!!

So, OK, I suppose we'll have to wait for Primus' new bud to overcome the shyness thing. Care to tantalize us further with possible name choices??

Rebecca

[Ninong]

Originally Posted by almostdiva

I suppose we'll have to wait for Primus' new bud to overcome the shyness thing. Care to tantalize us further with possible name choices?? !

Rebecca

You will be pleased to know that I have already ruled out Secundus.

[zhenya]

Originally Posted by Ninong

You will be pleased to know that I have already ruled out Secundus.

[Ninong]

I received the new ignitors for my Aquastarlight Future fixture from Aqua-Medic a couple of days ago. I haven't tried to install them yet. Hopefully that will make the fixture quieter. I just received my new 5-stage R.O./D.I. system this afternoon. Haven't opened the box yet. So now I have plenty to do. The fans I ordered online haven't arrived yet but they should get here sometime next week.

My first fish, "Primus" the Foxface Rabbitfish, that I added about a week ago is doing great as is the Ricordea yuma. I decided to pay a visit Tuesday to one of the LFS to see what they were getting in their new shipment. I was particularly interested in picking up one or two small sea stars in the genus Fromia. I lucked out, they received about a dozen sea stars. I picked out the two smallest ones I could find to make sure they were still juveniles. The species I was interested in only gets to 4"-5" adult size and some of them were already that size.



Both of my sea stars are about 2" across. In the store I thought they were Fromia elegans but after I got them home and looked at them under a magnifying glass, I believe they are probably Fromia milleporella, which is almost identical to F. elegans. They had not yet been acclimated to the store's tanks when I got them. I did a full three hour slow drip acclimation after getting them home so I sure hope they make it.




While I was there looking for sea stars I couldn't help but check out the dozens of bags of fish floating in the tanks. One fish in particular caught my eye. This species is something I was determined to try sooner or later, it's just that I got him sooner rather than later. I bought him in the unopened shipping bag because I didn't want him to be acclimated twice in one day to two entirely different tanks. He got a full one-hour acclimation after I got him home. He hid out inside the central cave for the first 24 hours or so. If you look directly above Primus, you will see a bright red spot peeking through the rocks. That's him.




He just started coming out today, a full 48 hours after he was introduced to the tank. As you can tell, he's a gorgeous Flame Angel (Centropyge loriculus) from the Marshall Islands. You will be relieved to know that I did not name him Secundus. His name is Bacchus. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that he behaves himself. I was hoping to wait four to six months before getting one of these but the temptation was too great. It was only after I got him home that I learned that the Flame Angel captive breeding program in Hawaii was already commercial. I thought it was still experimental and probably two or three years away from availability in the retail market. I was wrong. I'm glad I got him but at the same time I would have preferred captive-bred as a matter of principle. http://www.blackpearlsinc.com/2_7.shtml




Bacchus is still keeping close to the rocks. In this picture you can see one of the arms of my second Fromia at the left side of the picture under the rock.




Primus and his new pal, Bacchus.




View from the left side.




Primus and Bacchus go everywhere together. They got along great from the very beginning.


This afternoon I decided to go to the same LFS where I purchased my Ricordea yuma to see if they had any new ones in stock. They did, but they were either R. florida or Yumas in the same color I already have. While I was there I felt obligated to look around and maybe buy something. That's when I saw this gorgeous captive bred Orchid Dottyback (Pseudochromis fridmani) from O.R.A. So now I have a third fish and his name is not Tertius, it's Comus. He moves very fast and this was the only shot I got that he was even in the frame much less in focus.




Comus is getting along great with Primus and Bacchus but he pretty much ignores both of them. The tank is 65 days old today and the amphipods and copepods are swarming all over the place. From now on they will have to be more secretive if they value their lives. Same thing goes for the bristleworms, wherever they are. I know they're in there hiding somewhere and see one or two every now and then.

So far both Bacchus and Comus are eating frozen brine shrimp. Primus eats everything I have fed him but Bacchus hasn't yet come out of the central cave to feed. He waits for the brine shrimp to float into the cave and eats them in there. That means I have to add a lot of frozen brine to the tank all at the same time to make sure Primus doesn't eat it all before it gets into the cave. But I have only had Bacchus a couple of days and Comus only a few hours, so I'm hoping that both of them will enjoy some of the other daily specials on the menu as time goes on.

Observations: I think I'm down to just two Elysia crispata and one of them is smaller and a lighter color than the other one. In other words, one of them doesn't look too good. I'm still not sure if they are getting anything to eat or not.

I just checked the tank with my small Maglite flashlight to see if the amphipods and copepods are swarming all over the place as usual and they most certainly are. Fortunately for them Comus went to bed about an hour ago. The Little Yellow Submarine (Holothuria sp.) is doing his nightly mopping up routine on the sand bed. That little guy keeps track of where he has been and doesn't go back to the same spot until he has covered the rest of the tank. The reason I know this is because the little sand pellets are in different areas each morning. I hope he's doing better than the Lettuce Sea Slugs at finding the right stuff to eat. I think everybody (except the sea slugs of course) will be better off now that Los Tres Amigos are in the tank supplying their own unique detritus to the food web.

I don't know what's up with my Lysmata amboinensis cleaner shrimp. I was hoping that they would come out in the open more now that there are fish in the tank but that hasn't happened yet. I'm not sure I even have two of them in there anymore. I did see one of them in the back of the tank last week but that was the last time I spotted either one. I haven't turned off the pumps in about two weeks now and that's the only way I can hope to spot them looking down through the water. Before I got my first fish, I used to turn off the pumps every other evening around 7 p.m. when just the PC actinics were on and feed the sand bed critters with Formula One pellets and DT's phytoplankton but I didn't want to turn off the pumps just after getting Primus because I didn't want to do anything to stress him out. So I have been feeding with the pumps running, which is probably not the best way to get the most benefit out of DT's. Now that there are two new fish in the tank, I will wait a few more days before turning off the pumps. It's bad enough that I decided to clean the tank glass today for the first time in 11 days so that I would be able to take some pictures and this really freaked out Primus who went into full blown stress coloration for the entire time I was messing around in there and a good 20 minutes afterwards. He finally returned to his normal color 20 or 30 minutes after I was finished with my cleaning chores. I don't know if Bacchus was stressed or not because he was hiding out somewhere and he doesn't change colors like Primus does. All of this was earlier this morning before I picked up Comus.

I may have already mentioned this previously, but my three original Stomatella varia from Inland Aquatics have multiplied like crazy. I'm guessing that there are perhaps as many as thirty of them now. I still have several of the Strombus maculatus from IPSF but it's hard to count them at night. For whatever reason, I seem to have lost half of my Trochus snails from Inland Aquatics and IPSF. I still have seven of the original ten Astraea phoebia and I have Nassarius vibex all over the place. Unfortunately I still have the so called "micro" hermits from IPSF, too, and at least a few of those are definitely no longer micro sized. The two Strombus alatus are fantastic and fun to watch. They bury themselves in the sand every now and then with just their eye stalks and proboscis sticking out. And a couple of times a week they go into their jumping routine.

Now that I have three fish in the tank and now that I have a full R.O./D.I. system, I will start working on my water parameters more seriously. My overriding concern the first several weeks was the establishment of a healthy sand bed community and I was willing to deliberately overfeed to make sure that everybody was getting enough to eat. Except for my unexplained Trochus casualties, I'm pleased with the way things are going. So far I have only had one of the little Tapes sp. sand bed clams come up out of the sand bed and die. I have been told that it is likely that all of them will die within the first few months. At least that was the experience of the hobbyist who told me that. I don't know if feeding a little DT's three times a week will make any difference or not. Time will tell.

[Reefland]

Ahh, beautiful fish Ninong! I lov ethe Flame Angels but hav enever been gutsy enough to try one. Back in the day I had a Coral Beauty who was the perfect resident but never have had a Flame Angel. The picture of the Dottyback turned out to be a better picture of the Flame Angel I think.

Looking great pal! I know your having a blast just as I am. I just ordered a bit more Fully Cured LR to replace the Tonga Branch that we left in the tank when you sent the Buna Spiney. There are a couple of small pieces of that red algae showing it's ugly face so we decided to rip out the rest of the remaining rock and go with some more new to eliminate any possibilities. Check out my thread when you get a minute.

[almostdiva]

Congrats Ninong!

Those are wonderful pics and everybody looks great. Those sea stars are RED, REDRED !


I really like the shot from the left side -- you can see the fish AND the conch.

It's probably someplace earlier in this thread, but I'm gonna ask anywhay. Where did you get your seaswirl from -- online or LFS. I am planning on getting one, and have only found them at Aquarium Currents. Thanx!

Enjoy all your new aquatic pals!

Rebecca

[Ninong]

Originally Posted by almostdiva

Congrats Ninong!

Those are wonderful pics and everybody looks great. Those sea stars are RED, REDRED !

Yes, they certainly are! That's one of the added fringe benefits of Fromia milleporella or F. elegans but the most important thing in my case is that they stay relatively small -- less than 5" fully grown. I have seen some beautiful Linckia laevigata, too, but they get so large that they would look out of place in a little tank like mine.

My biggest concern is that you have no way of knowing how they were handled during collection and transport. So many sea stars die weeks after you get them into your tank as a result of poor handling before they even got to the LFS.

It's probably someplace earlier in this thread, but I'm gonna ask anywhay. Where did you get your seaswirl from -- online or LFS.

I got them from Marine Depot: http://www.marinedepot.com/a_wm_seaswirl.asp?CartId=

[zhenya]

Hi Ninong,

Congrats on GREAT buys

You sneak you... I see now why you waited to post the pics...you wanted all your new goodies to acclimate and come out and pose for the shot Centropyge is absolutely gorgeous!!! I know they have some reputation for nipping corals and even go after clams but I did have one as well about 4 years ago and he was a model sitizen. It died of Ich after about a year in my tank when I stupidly intoduced purple tang infected with it(I did not see it in the store).Lost almost entire fish stock exept for the yellow tang and Coris wrasse. I never got another after that but will try later when I restart my 110. Thanks for providing that link,I think I'll get me one of the captive-bred ones.
I also noticed how large your Strombus alatus is,I hope mine gets this large and still get enough to eat. On another note, you mentioned that you overfed your sand bed intentionally to insure food supply for the infauna. I think it is the correct way to establish it,even if NO3 levels seems to be on the high side. FWIW, if you remember,I wrote in one of my posts on this thread about how my infauna seem to be on the decline...I think it is becouse I stopped feeding my tank as much as I did and after initial explosion of pods I now barely see them.I can't get NO3 reading at all but I think diversity had suffered. Of course introducing copperband b-fly was a mistake as well...he's very efficient at eating pods and worms and without setting up a refuge I'm destined to buy kits from IA every six month or so
Sorry for rambling,Ninong. Your tank looks GREAT after 65 days and on the right course( it helps when Captain knows where he's going)

[Ninong]

Originally Posted by zhenya

You sneak you... I see now why you waited to post the pics...you wanted all your new goodies to acclimate and come out and pose for the shot

I have found that it is easier to take their pictures if I can actually see them. Just like it is easier for me to read the street signs in Chinese in San Francisco if I already know what street I'm on.

Centropyge is absolutely gorgeous!!!

Thanks! They had just received three of them that were floating in three different bags in three different tanks and he was by far the most intensely colored of the lot.

I know they have some reputation for nipping corals and even go after clams but I did have one as well about 4 years ago and he was a model sitizen.

Yes, I realize that some of them have been known to nip at clam mantles and some corals, especially Open Brains, but I have only the one Ricordea yuma in my tank at the present time and I intend to continue feeding a variety of foods to the fish with the leftovers intended for all the sand bed critters. There is no evidence in the literature that coral polyps are part of their natural diet. It seems to be an acquired trait in captivity. After browsing literally hundreds of hobbyists' websites in the U.S., Europe and Asia, I have come to believe that they are much more common in European and Asian reef tanks than they are over here. Comments range from "he doesn't bother anything" to "what little damage he does is tolerable."

I don't mind avoiding certain corals that are known to be a temptation to Flame Angels but I really would like to keep a couple of Tridacna maxima and T. crocea clams. I believe it will be safer if I avoid the smaller specimens and start out with something at least 4" long.

While we're on this topic of fish that are sometimes not reef-safe, I made a suggestion to the LFS dude who sold me my Pseudochromis fridmani that it might be a good idea if he would take the 3.5" long Chelmon rostratus that they have had for a couple of weeks now that refuses to eat commercial food and put it in their square coral tank with all the Aiptasia. I figured they could kill two birds with one stone. The Copperband would get live food to eat and they would get rid of their hideous Aiptasia problem, at least temporarily. The guy told me he couldn't do that because it was well known that Copperbands eat shrooms and zoos. I asked him if that was based on his personal observation and he told me, no, it's just well known. I have never hear of a Copperband eating anything more than feather dusters and Christmas Tree worms in a reef tank. In fact I have never heard of them bothering any of the host sea anemones either but I wouldn't want to tempt them on that score by having a symbiotic anemone without one or two resident clownfish to protect it.

It died of Ich after about a year in my tank when I stupidly intoduced purple tang infected with it(I did not see it in the store).

One of the reasons that I am holding off on getting a Tang of any color is the fact that I do not have a Q-tank set up. Your suggestion of the Foxface Rabbitfish has made it much easier for me to resist the tang temptation. In browsing the five or six LFS that are reasonably close to my home (all are more than 40 miles away), I have seen some very healthy looking Yellow Tangs and some healthy and some not so healthy Purple Tangs. There is only one store where I have noticed ich and HLLE on their tangs but that is a store that I would never buy fish from in the first place. I don't know why I waste my time stopping there but it's on the way to one of my doctor's and I feel obligated to look in every few months while I am in that neck of the woods.

Of the LFS that I have visited, I have purchased fish from two of them so far. Of those two LFS, I did spot HLLE on one Purple Tang but no ich so far. One of them runs copper as SOP and the other one does not. There is a third LFS that I have purchased equipment from that I might consider buying fish from but I would be even more careful than usual in trying to avoid fish from certain collection sites. All three of them get fish from the Philippines and Indonesia with the usual claim that none of their collectors use cyanide, which can't be verified since there are no CDT tests in place. Certified collectors are still permitted to collect and sell cyanide fish as long as they don't mix them in with their net caught fish. What good is that? And I certainly don't trust the exporters to enforce anything.

I also noticed how large your Strombus alatus is,I hope mine gets this large and still get enough to eat.

I got my S. alatus from Reeftopia. Both were 1.75" long when I received them and both are about 2.25" long today.

On another note, you mentioned that you overfed your sand bed intentionally to insure food supply for the infauna. I think it is the correct way to establish it,even if NO3 levels seems to be on the high side. FWIW, if you remember,I wrote in one of my posts on this thread about how my infauna seem to be on the decline...I think it is becouse I stopped feeding my tank as much as I did and after initial explosion of pods I now barely see them.

My sand bed is coming along just fine except that I wish I had more hair worms visible. There are two large ones that I can find all the time but if any of the others survived, they are in areas that are out of sight. BTW, these are sold as "spaghetti" worms by the online vendors but Dr. Ron says they are not spaghetti worms. I was hoping to wait at least three to six months before adding a Flame Angel or an Orchid Dottyback to the tank because of the amphipods and copepods but I gave in to temptation. At least I held out more than two months which is better than some people. My amphipods and copepods occupy the holes and passageways in the Kaelini rock and whenever I check the two large flat pieces above the central cave at night they are swarming all over them.

Your tank looks GREAT after 65 days and on the right course( it helps when Captain knows where he's going)

Thanks, but I have already done things that I wish I had done differently. I guess that's true of everybody, which is why there is always the "next" tank to dream about. The one that will be perfect.

[blown63chevy]

Hey Ninong,
It all looks great. Next to the Coral Beauty, the Flame is my other favorite Angle. I've had my coral beauty for about 3 years now and he's been great in the reef. I hope to add a Flame when I move everything into the 150. I'm still working on my stand to make sure everything is right before I try moving it all into the house and building it in. I'll post some pic's later when I get the chance. Good luck with your new inhabitants.
Ray

[Ninong]

Originally Posted by blown63chevy

Hey Ninong,
It all looks great. Next to the Coral Beauty, the Flame is my other favorite Angle. I've had my coral beauty for about 3 years now and he's been great in the reef. I hope to add a Flame when I move everything into the 150. I'm still working on my stand to make sure everything is right before I try moving it all into the house and building it in. I'll post some pic's later when I get the chance. Good luck with your new inhabitants.
Ray

Thanks!

[Penguin]

Nice fish! Do I sense a mythological theme? I've been on the edge of my seat the past 2 days to find out what you got.

I've wanted to try a dwarf angel for awhile, but I'll wait until I finally get the bigger tank. I've been eyeing C. aurantonotus myself.

I've been really pleased with my Springer dottyback. The orchid is supposed to have a similarly mellow temperament, so hopefully it should get along well with whatever others you decide to add. I think you'll like it. About how many fish are you planning total?

I really like the Fromia sea stars too. They seem a little hard to come by in the stores that I visit though. I haven't been able to find a good one yet.

[jsaltzgi]

Everything's looking great!!! I think if you keep the angel fed well (which in turn will feed the sandbed well), you will be fine with your future corals and clams.

I can't speak from experience with a flame, but can say from experience with two Majestic angels, I never had a problem with nipping anything, not even the mantle of a crocea or a couple of maximas that I lost a while back. The Majestic ate practically any food I threw in, including bits of minced garlic!!! He was healthy and fat and showed nice growth. When I moved the tank, I traded him back for a really little Majestic that had been in a system with various corals and clams with no problems, either.

James

[Northman_with_reef]

Your tank is looking good!

Baccus looks real good too

[Ninong]

Originally Posted by Penguin

Nice fish! Do I sense a mythological theme?

Only indirectly. Actually it's a Mardi Gras theme. True, Bacchus is the Roman god of wine but it's also the name of one of the newer and larger carnival clubs in New Orleans. Comus is the name of the oldest carnival club in New Orleans. The Mystick Krewe of Comus first paraded in New Orleans in 1857. I believe the word Comus refers to a mask as the original members wanted to keep their identities secret so as to avoid arrest for too much public merry-making. A Bal Masque (masked ball) is a tradition of carnival clubs in New Orleans from the earliest years and was copied from European Royal Courts where the aristocracy wearing masks performed ritual dances in front of the King and Queen.

The name Primus (PREE-moos) is Latin for first. I could have continued the ordinal numbers in Latin for the first five fish but I would not have gone any further than that because most people would think that the name Sextus referred to something other than sixth. Which reminds me, why do we still call our ninth, tenth, eleventh and twelfth months September, October, November and December? Because they were originally the seventh, eighth, ninth and tenth months of the Roman calendar, that's why. There used to be a Quintus and a Sextus, too, before they were changed to the Latin for July and August in honor of you know who.

I actually named my two Lysmata amboinensis cleaner shrimp Hermes and Aphrodite (Herm-Aphrodite), which are the Greek equivalents of Mercury and Venus, but unfortunately I can't find them anymore.

I've been on the edge of my seat the past 2 days to find out what you got.

You, too! I would have posted pictures sooner but the camera's battery was dead. As it is I used two AA batteries instead of the regular camera battery because my brother-in-law forgot to pick up a new battery as promised and I found these in a drawer in the kitchen. They don't seem to work too good so one of us will have to go out for the real McCoy. Another problem was that Bacchus was staying inside the caves for the first two days hiding out.

I just fed the tank with an entire thawed out cube of blood worms to see if I could entice Bacchus and Comus to eat something besides frozen brine. That did the trick. They both gobbled them up only Bacchus still won't go too far out into open water. Comus is all over the place already. I don't have any problems with Primus, he eats everything I have ever tried. The Nassarius certainly appreciated the leftovers this time. They were popping up out of the sand all over the tank before the first blood worm ever made it all the way to the bottom.

I've wanted to try a dwarf angel for awhile, but I'll wait until I finally get the bigger tank. I've been eyeing C. aurantonotus myself.

The truth is that I purchased Bacchus on the spur of the moment but one benefit that I can see is that this way I will be adding corals gradually over the next several weeks and can watch his behavior as each new coral is introduced rather than adding him to a tank full of corals and clams and wondering what will happen next.

I've been really pleased with my Springer dottyback. The orchid is supposed to have a similarly mellow temperament, so hopefully it should get along well with whatever others you decide to add. I think you'll like it.

I have always wanted an Orchid Dottyback. This one has such intense coloration under the metal halides it is unbelieveable. The one picture that I took of him is nowhere close to his true intense coloration. And under actinics alone he is a brilliant dark royal blue.

About how many fish are you planning total?

I don't know. But it's really not so much a matter of how many as it is a matter of total mass and feeding behaviors. So far the Foxface is my largest fish (adult size), followed by the Flame Angel. The next question then is do I really need a Tang at all? Sure, I would like one but my tank is only 120-gallons, which is marginal at best for any Tang. And if I get a Tang that's another large fish with a mass several times that of a single Dottyback. That thinking applies to metabolic waste loads; you still have to consider other impacts, such as feeding behaviors. The Dottyback, for instance, rules out the possibility of a Mandarin Dragonet and no one in his right mind would put ten Dottybacks in the same tank just because they produce less waste than a single adult Tang. Not in a little 120-gal tank anyway. The very brave might try several juvenile captive raised Dottybacks in a larger tank (300+ gallons) so that they would end up with a harem of one male and the rest females but anybody putting several adult Dottybacks together is nuts.

I would like to get a Copperband Butterflyfish but I don't know if I will or not. It's just that I would like one. That might be a possibility if I pass on the Tangs. Not because they wouldn't get along, they probably would if the Copperband was in the tank first, but because they are both large fish.

I really like the Fromia sea stars too. They seem a little hard to come by in the stores that I visit though. I haven't been able to find a good one yet.