Interesting Japanese hobbyist's website:

[Ninong]

I decided to revisit one of my favorite Japanese websites today to see if there was anything new. There was. Looks like he has posted a lot of new stuff since I last checked up on him a couple of years ago. In fact, when I visited his website for the first time, there was no Japanese to English translation program available.

First a word or two about using machine translation programs to translate Japanese into English. The results are often mystifying, to say the least. The machine programs seem to read the Japanese characters phonetically and the English that comes out sounds like the typical Chinese accented mispronounciations of the same English words. For example: Reef tank gets translated as "leaf tank." Royal gramma gets translated as "royal glamour." Flame angel gets translated as "frame angel." Soft coral gets translated as "software coral." Live rock gets translated as "live lock" and sometimes as "live block." Some of the translations are so funny that they can't possibly be correct. I'll let you figure out those for yourself.

Also, some of the Japanese common names for the fish do not translate into English at all and some of the ones that do may surprise you. For example, clownfish is "bear chisel."

The reason that I like this particular website is because this guy has been keeping marine aquariums for more than 30 years now. He formed his own reef club (translates as "sea playing meeting") about nine years ago. He is also an avid diver who collects all of his own "powder coral sand" and natural seawater for his water changes even though that requires a trip that takes 4-1/2 hours each way! He purchased a 26-passenger bus that he converted into an RV just for these trips to the coast. Talk about dedication and going the extra mile for your hobby!

He also propagates coral frags in the ocean instead of your typical frag tank. How's that for ya!

I first ran into this particular website more than two years ago on Reef Central. Someone has posted a link to it. To tell you the truth, I liked some of those pictures better than some of the more recent pictures. His latest tank (approximately 630 gallons) was set up in 2000 and it was newer then. The most recent pictures don't impress me as much but that's because it looks like his tank has too many soft corals (software corals ) for my taste. That's probably because his tank is 39.37" tall and his lighting is only 150w metal halides, although there is some supplemental natural solar lighting, too. His previous tank had been set up for more than 15 years when he set up the newest tank in 2000. I'm not certain about this but I think that first tank may still be up and running, making it 20 years old now! That tank was also 630 gallons but it was 118"L x 31.5"W x 39.4"H. (P.S. -- Yes, it's still up and running because I found pictures of it dated November 2000 and also January 2005. I can't say whether he has ever re-started it during that time period because I couldn't find anything about that one way or the other.)

His newest tank is 1600 x 1500 x 1000 mm (2400 liters) plus a 2000 liter (530-gal sump!!). That's roughly 63" x 59" x 39.4" (630 gallons). The substrate in this tank is "powder coral sand" and it ranges in depth from 10" to 4". We learned that a couple of years ago when we had one of the Japanese-American members of Reef Central translate some of the stuff that Babelfish was messing up. Another interesting thing about his new tank is that all of the sand bed is below the viewing area. That makes it a lot easier to keep the viewing area clean without having to deal with sand getting in the way.

There are pictures of the reef tanks of many of the members of his reef club (sea playing meeting) on his site, too. Almost all of them use deep sand beds. This is probably because the guy who formed the club (the chairman -- no, not the guy on Iron Chef!) is a proponent of deep sand beds composed of "powder coral sand." The thing that got me interested in this particular website was the fact that many of these guys seem to have been running DSBs for a lot longer than they have been popular over here in the U.S. Many of those tanks have DSBs that are deeper than 4" (some much deeper) and many of them have been up for more than 10 years.

This was a topic that I was very interested in back in the summer of 2003 when I was setting up my reef tank. At that time I was receiving PMs from certain people telling me that it was foolish to set up a tank with a DSB since all DSBs were destined to crash within three or four years, or less! Obviously I didn't buy that argument but that's not to say that those folks didn't have crashes of their own which they attribute to their sand beds. I went with a 6" DSB and so far it hasn't caused me any problems whatsoever. I have since taken the position that you should set up whatever substrate (or none) you like and forget about what others have to say. Saying that all DSBs are destined to crash within a few years makes about as much sense as saying that none of them will ever crash regardless of the husbandry involved.

Anyway, here is the link to the website: http://www7.ocn.ne.jp/~uchiura/

Here is the link to Alta Vista's Babelfish translation program: http://babelfish.altavista.com/

Enter the url address in the Translate a Webpage box and then choose Japanese to English. Check out the way it translates the information in that little box on the opening page.

Here is a shortcut that I think will work. I believe all of the links below will take you to the translated version that I already ran through Babelfish. It will take a very long time to explore that entire website if you follow all of the links:

- Top page
- Self introduction
- Introduction of tank
Type of coral
Transferring/changing of software coral 殖
How to increase the mushroom
Transferring/changing of トゲトサカ 殖
Type of fish
Photograph "coral art" of tank
Coral to completion of art- Charm of skin diving- Record of sea
In underwater propagation of coral
2002 [ first challenge ] - 2004
You play with the beach
2002
2003
2004- Sea playing meeting
2005- Tank of companion
Photograph of tank
Tank of ミドリイシサンゴ
Mosquito credit bear propagation of chisel- Link- Notice edition

P.S. -- Please be aware of the fact that those are not the only links. Some of the links are at the bottom of those pages. For example, be sure you don't miss this link with pictures of the construction process: http://babelfish.altavista.com/babel...ura%2fart.html

[Papa Doug]

Thanks for the links. Always good to read.

[Samper]

That video of his system is so amazing. I want some rockwork like that.


cray gee = crazy
hah

I've checked every page from the links section and man do they have some beautiful stuff over there.

[Poseidon]

Uhh... Where is the ALGAE??? ;)

[Reefland]

What is all the orange, are all of those Sun Polyps?

[Samper]

Yes

[Reefland]

That's pretty unique huh; almost overwhelming. I really like how the rock is suspended at the surface though.

[Ninong]

What is all the orange, are all of those Sun Polyps?

He uses those and other azooxanthellate corals on the underside of the the overhang since they won't receive any light from above. He shows how he mounts them to individual plugs of rock in a separate little mounting tank and lets them cure in there for an hour or so before attaching the plugs into "dents" in the overhanging structure. He also has a picture of them with a comment about the polyps extending after being fed "crushed shrimp." I guess that's crumbled krill or something.

To show you how meticulous this guy was in planning the interior rock structure, he carefully numbered each rock piece and actually rehearsed putting them together. At least that's the way the translation came out. And if you saw the pictures of the empty tank with just the forms for the rocks to be attached to, you will understand how he achieved the overhanging effect. Here are the construction pics: http://babelfish.altavista.com/babel...ura%2fart.html

Speaking of translation, did you notice that Banggai cardinal translated as "burning guy" cardinal?

[Penguin]

Holy cow! How does he feed all those sun polyps?

Cool site. Thanks for the link.

[Ninong]

My favorite bit from that entire site is the fact that the guy purchased a 26-passenger bus and converted it into a specialized RV to accomodate his trips to the ocean to do scuba diving and collect natural seawater for his water changes. Can you imagine driving 4-1/2 hours each way every month to collect NSW for your tank?

[Biomanjcs72]

My favorite bit from that entire site is the fact that the guy purchased a 26-passenger bus and converted it into a specialized RV to accomodate his trips to the ocean to do scuba diving and collect natural seawater for his water changes. Can you imagine driving 4-1/2 hours each way every month to collect NSW for your tank?

It's 4 hours each way for me from B'ham to Perdido where My mother and sister live. (Sister lives around corner from Mom; How cool is that)

I can only imagine the PITA of filling buckets with water and hauling them 4 hours inland.

And if I got pulled over and searched - "it's only saltwater Officer - I promise"