Grog

If you want to look for a specific mantis, here is a great site with a comprehensive listing of species and their availablity for aquaria, etc. Good reference IMO. http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/arthropoda/crustacea/malacostraca/eumalacostraca/royslist/index.html#directory The mantis I have is this species: http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/arthropoda/crustacea/malacostraca/eumalacostraca/royslist/species.php?name=n_wennerae

I think the mantis vs. glass stories are a bit overblown. One it is species dependent, and two, why would it smack the glass? Mine rarely strikes. I'd be comfortable hand feeding it. So I don't think it will break the glass. Want to avoid the issue 100%? Get a spearing mantis.

If you are up to it, an octopus would be awesome. Are there any that can be happy in a 29g? Octopi are smart, would be very cool to have one in the house. Eels would be my second choice. Interesting behaviors to observe, which would be my negative on a mantis. Mantis are not bad critters, just not visible and showy. They hide a lot. You have to work to observe them.

Didn't really fit into the other forum categories so I posted it here. A friend emailed this to me. Love the encrusted gun.

Gone!

Pending

I ordered three 'lots' from liveplants.com along with a lot of saragassum. I only needed two 'lots' of this caulerpa, there was more in the bags than I expected. If you want the other bag, it is still sealed and yours. If you want it tonight, it is here in Bastrop. If you want it tomorrow, I can meet up in north/central Austin at lunch time. It is still in the shipping bags and I don't want to keep it longer than tomorrow. Thus it is free. http://live-plants.com/Palmtree.htm <--- That is what you get. Grog

Glad to hear your amenone pulled through!

I'm not an expert but my condy poops out stuff then shrivels up for a bit. Even with that not happening, the condy expands and contracts drastically during the day. When I come home she is pulled into her 'sheath' and almost no tentacles, then by the end of the evening, she fully extends and engorges. It is like a 8X change in size in two hours. Wish I had a time lapse camera for it. And to agree with an earlier poster, I think they intentionally shrivel up when you have guests over, just to show us who's the boss.

I have an AquaC Remora HOB that I purchased from another member a few months back and didn't end up using. Its not in perfect shape but I'd give you a good deal on it. When I say not perfect, the collection cup has a fracture, but it does not leak. I can send a picture if you like. I think it has the model 1200 pump. I've been using the pump from this unit to mix saltwater when needed. Other than that it sits in my closet. I can check the pump model number tomorrow. Let me know if this is what you are looking for.

I was happy with the critters I received in our last group buy. Pods were plentiful and the starfish were huge. Thanks for renewing, y'all have a great selection of stuff.

Thanks! I appreciate the feedback. I need to do a census of the tank. Maybe this weekend....

Just an inquiry, I'm not voting, I don't need a hotel as I've got tons of points with one chain and can stay there for free. I have like 2 weeks saved up! Not interested in the Aquarium as I've done that a few times already. Plus, I may not even be able to roll into town until later on Saturday. But.... I'm totally down for the jettty collecting trip. I'm assuming it won't be a problem to meet up with y'all at the jetties, and participate in that portion only. Correct? If that is cool, I'll need to know when and where to meet y'all.

Cleaned the tank yesterday, so I figure it is time for a mini update. Things are going well in my little tank. I'm beginning to see lots of coraline growth on the powerheads and the back glass. Aside from my coral beauty doing a jumping trick, no deaths since the last post. Although I do have a crab that has unknown whereabouts right now. All of my corals are going well and my anemone is loving the highest flow and highest light in the tank. I think she has grown since last month! (See picture above.) The clowns had to get in the picture. They usually stay way from Claudia. Here is another picture of her and the clowns, with the happy gorg on the side. Got the anemone from Don of Frags and More during the frag swap, it has found a spot it likes too and seems to be adjusting nicely. Here is some pulsing xenia I got from another club member a few weeks ago, and another of my anemones in the substrate. Yes, I love my anemones. haha The snail was not to be outdone by the clowns and had to get its moment in the camera too. (snails seem drawn to the front glass...) All of these pictures were taken by my wife, not me. Which is why they look decent for a change. That's all for now. -Grog

Sounds like a cool experiment, maybe a few small tanks, identical in all regards except for substrate choices. Same type of live rock, tank size, filtration, etc. Just have one with live sand, one with dead sand, and one with no substrate, and measure the numbers for a few weeks. If we wanted to get crazy, we could try a couple of varietes of live sand. Depending on the size of tanks we use for the experiment, I have an extra unused 20 gallon and 10 gallon sitting around would donate one for test equipment. It would be a good side-by-side test and fun to document.

My noob thinking is that some sand that is sold as live may or not really be live. I think if you get it out of another established tank, or out of the ocean in an reasonable amount of time then I'd call it live. The stuff I got was definitely live, I could see the critters moving around in it. Who knows what all was really in there? (which may bother some folks, but I like the Cracker Jack box approach.) Does it make a difference? Dunno, but I prefer having substrate over a bare bottomed tank and the critters like rooting around in it. I wanted my 33 to look more 'natural' so I went with what was offered with 'The Package'. Other side of the coin, my mantis tank seems to be doing OK with regular black sand from Petco as a substrate. That sand was definitely not live. I like the look of the black sand in that tank, it was set up to be a species tank and have a different look. All the numbers are about the same between the two tanks. When I get a larger main display tank, I'll probably use some of the live sand from TBS and some Topic Eden in about 50/50 mix. The live sand for bio-diversity and the Tropic Eden for appearances.

They are plentiful at our place. Been stung a few times. Worst part is the metallic taste that you get in your mouth for a day or two after.

My new computer is assembled now. After switching through 10 different Linux distros and versions over the past few days, I settled on Ubuntu 12.04 LTS last night. Much improved over the earlier Unity interface IMO. Install went easily and it detected all of my hardware, which is all cutting-edge new stuff. (This can be a problem with some distros, support lags the hardware.) Pretty darn good for free. I'm spending the next few evenings getting all of the configurations and software set up correctly but this is very promising. The last version of Ubuntu turned me off, this has a nicer feel to it.

Applications architect, I design internally-used web applications with a SQL back end at a local semiconductor company. I still write some code now and again but these days, I do more of the functional design, documentation, team management, and customer interface side of things. I really only get involved with the code when something turns into a science project. This has been a good change for me, now I can work on computer projects (which I enjoy) and not feel like it is a chore. Like Brian, I'm one of those 'self taught' guys too. School of hard knocks haha

Nest nearby? That's a few you've found now.... Great colors on that one though, the contrast in brown and red is great, if I didn't have kids in the house I'd say that would be a nice specimen to keep. Rat snakes, corn snakes, king snakes, and copper heads just look pretty to me. Sleek.