Brodie

Thanks! Great pics in your blog. Neat mantis. How are those to care for? I have a 10g and 20gLong aquarium and had thought about one of these. Are they live only feed? Off topic but curious. Brodie

*Wave* Check out my gallery. I posted some this morning. I have a digital camera that takes great pictures outside or in lit rooms but apparently the "forced auto-focus" becomes "auto-blur" when I try and take tank shots. The pics are horrible but they give ya an idea of my now week old 75g. I look at some of you guys' shots (great photography btw), and the beautiful coral tanks. Mine looks pretty sad with it's sporadic swath of 1" tall frags here and there. My darkest Tomato Clown is a huge camera ham too. It's very hard to snap shots because he constantly stays in frame close to the camera. Part of the bluriness is me rushing to snap a pic while he's strutting in the wrong place before he realizes it. sheesh. Brodie

Haha yup, thanks for pointing me back in this direction Entropy! Hi KarenM! As for info on my tanks, boy where to begin? Currently I have 3 going (down from 8 about 3 years ago; 2 of those only had single fish in them...piranhas actually so they don't play well with others hehe). 2.5gallon with a tsp size dab of polyps, a 1/2" bubbletip anemone I salvaged from an old tank, and a baby false percula. They are hangin out til I swap out my desk and set up the 10 gallon planned for em. 29 gallon with a black piranha in it. I lost the red belly in a moving tragedy . The Serrasalmus rhombeus (niger) or Black Piranha, and all piranhas actually, are rather misunderstood fish. There are quite possibly the most skittish fish I've ever had. Originally I had 5 red bellies in a 125 gallon planted tank. I regularly had my hands in there doing maintenance. They run and hide on the other side. If you have bright lights on the tank and they come on before the sun lights up the room it startles them so much they will take off swimming and slam into the glass. Keep em fed and happy and they are hardy and safe pets. Just deserve a little care and respect hehe. --on to the reef to be-- I started with saltwater about 6 years ago with a 29 gallon experiment (first attempt). Had a clown, a damsel, a dwarf fuzzy lion, a 8" long snowflake eel, and a few corals. I had some shrooms, a toadstool, a xenia (briefly before it melted), a heliofungia, and a gonipora. Can you tell by that mess I had no idea what I was doing?? Managed to keep the helio about 2 weeks. The gonipora surprisingly made it about 4 months. Shrooms lasted til I eventually broke down the tank. The toadstool wilted up and had a funky slime that made it look like it was coming apart...I quickly ditched it thinking it was dying. Much later I discovered it was probably just shedding it's outer skin. All in all a disaster for the corals. I had an emperor 400 and a 15watt UV sterilizer on it and surprisingly never had ammonia problems with all that in there. After that I vowed no corals other than shrooms til I learned more and had a bigger tank. Set up a 55 gallon about 2 years ago, mainly fish and some shrooms. Decided recently I wanted something a little bigger, but not as big as the 125 gallon I had between the 29 and 55. Traded someone for their 75 a few weeks ago and just got it running and livestock from the 55 moved to it. Everything i have in it is small frags at the moment (other than fish). Here's the list and setup: Livestock: 2 Tomato Clowns 2" 1 Pygmy Angel 2" 1 Green Chromis 1" 2 Cleaner shrimp Various snails and hermits (will go snail only as the hermits decline) 3 introduced bristleworms 12 micro stars I haven't seen since introduction 1 serpeant star...can hardly be troubled to move more than an arm to eat..very lazy. 4" Green Star Polyps 1" Pulsing Sinularia (yup this sinularia pulses great find) 1" Neospongodes (Purple Passion) small cluster Pom-Pom Xenia (they pulsed when I got them, nitrates in 55 about killed them, recovering now) 2" Pink Finger Leather (sickly but saw polyps for first time in 2 weeks this morning) ~2" frag of Neon Green Hammer Coral (stunning in person) 3 of the ugliest brown/neon green Rhodactis rhodostoma(?) you've ever seen, of course thriving since they are an eye-sore. 2" frag of rusty orange/brown Montipora capricornis (currently looking for better home for it, maybe trade for Sarco Elegans (yellow fiji leather) since I don't have adequate flow for it). Lost 2" neon pink Ricordea Yuma (burned and nitrates I suppose it melted, couldn't save it). MIA 1" metallic blue/green Ricordea (was in bad shape but started looking better after the transfer detached from rock apparently and can't be found now) Setup: 75g tank 3-3.5" CaribSea Aragonite sand ~50lbs live rock (purple, pink, and dark red coralline) Emperor 400 that I put on from time to time for the charcoal Protein skimmer (Knopp) had 2 Modded maxijet 1200's but they ripped up the sand like crazy so using two Hagen 802's til I set up a closed loop (the post that brought me here Entropy intercepted hehe). Aquaclear 500 modded into a HOB refugium with Chaeto, rubble, lighting. 250W Power Compact light (2 actinic, 2 50/50, blue LEDs moonlight..great at night torch fluoresces under the LEDs) Currently dosing: Seachem Reef Calcium Seachem Reef Trace amino acids & vitamins...believe it's Reef Plus /shrug Well there it all is in a coconut shell. hehe. Brodie

Hi all!, I posted a question on ReefCentral the other day and the one person who replied turned out to be from Round Rock. He told me about the Austin group, and so here I am. *wave* =) Brodie