ejaustin

I've found a house and agreed with the seller on a price, so barring foundation problems or funding problems (neither expected), I'll have a home for the human folk of the household. I plan on getting a 3' x 4' x 25" tank to feature jawfish, but I need to figure out what to do for Joey. He's my neon velvet damsel fish. I know he's destined to become a fairly big fish and crotchety on top of that. So how big a tank will he need when he's grown and who could live with his temperament? I need to start planning its location, now that I know what floorplan I'll be working with. ej

Just in time for a meeting! blob7.gif ej

Maybe you could just have an algae trough. PaulB on ReefCentral uses one (you can try to search there, if you'd like). It's basically just like 1/2 a plastic gutter across most of the top of his tank, inside the tank and lower at one end to keep the water flowing. You can't really see it looking in the front of the tank and it gets light from the lights for his tank. I can never search on ReefCentral successfully, and I probably am not explaining it well, but maybe someone else who has seen the pics can explain it better/more accurately. ej

I'll bring 2 or 3 bottles of Dr P ej

Okay, time to talk about carpools. I plan to go to the meeting and I'll be coming from South Austin. Two caveats: I'm a smoker so my car is smoky; I drive a very small car (Mitsu Eclipse) so I can probably only take 1 rider. If anyone is interested, PM me. ej

I can make this one! I thought I would be working but through a fluke, i'm not!!! Yay! blob7.gif

That's the *funniest* think I've read in I don't know *how* long. hello2.gif ej

Thanks.

Okay, I think I'm finally ready to start seriously trying to find the house I want to buy. Can anyone recommend a good real estate agent? Preferably in South Austin. Also, once I locate a house, I'd like to have an independent appraisal done. ej

I'd wish y'all would quit scheduling these things on my weekend to work. *sigh* Well, maybe I'll catch it next time. ej PS. No, I don't seriously expect that anyone knows when I work and when I'm off.

Yep, it's entirely possible she's just been pigging out. She keeps changing colors, though... gets darker for a while and then lightens up (literally!). Most likely wishful thinking on my part. Still, keeps me keeping a close eye on the tank, in a fun kinda way. ej

This morning I noticed that Bertha Blenny is huge! I mean her belly is very, very round. All of the blennies seem to be happy and they are all growing, but this is different. I don't know if she just pigged out on the algae I put in the tank last night, but I'm thinking maybe she has eggs. (I've been reading fish-breeding forums, so maybe it's a simple matter of my own suggestability.) I'm excited and saddened by the possibility. Excited because, well, there might be babies! Saddened because I really have no way to help them along at this point. The tank is too small and I don't have anything to feed tiny guys and everyone else will just gobble them up. OTOH, maybe it bodes well for the future, when I am more prepared to provide room, food and safety for a brood. ej

I don't know a lot about octopi, but seems like I read somewhere that they die shortly after spawning. Could be wrong, though, and seems like it might be species-specific. ej

Pods of some kind, maybe? I *love* pods. Every morning I check my sump to watch them swimming around for a little bit. When I move my tank, I'll have a pod farm about the main tank so I can gravity feed pods to the display. I can hardly wait! ej PS Yes, I'm a little quirkier than most.

From UT, take the Route # 5-WOODROW-NB to Northcross Mall (which is a big transfer center for the bus system). No changes. Takes about half an hour. The buses are free for UT students, last time I checked. See http://www.capmetro.org/ for the Austin bus system. BTW, when I was at AA a few days ago, they had a Help Wanted sign in the window. I have no idea if the position has been filled, but thought I might mention it. ej

40g? I'd probably be tempted to buy a new tank and get it as ready as you can ahead of time. After the move, use the old tank as a sump or something. ej

I plan to leave Sunday after I get off work, so about 7:00 or 7:30. Some time between now and then I'll have picked a more specific place to go and booked a room somewhere close by for the night. I may spend some time by the water Sunday night, depending on how tired I am and whether I remember to bring the flashlights. I plan to head back to Austin noonish or a little later. I wouldn't mind a hitchhiker, but I drive a little bitty car (Mitsu Eclipse) that would not be able to tow a boat. You can send me a PM if you think you might like to ride along. ej

Port A is Port Aransas, just a little north of Corpus Christi although I may go a little further south because I hear there's more seagrass south of Corpus. Rockport is in the same general area and there's a nice state park there (Goose Island). BTW, Texas has a *great* state park system. My favorite beach is the municipal beach in Port Lavaca. Smallish but well-maintained and like $2 or $3 to park for the day. Campground adjacent to it. I haven't been in the hobby long and the only reason I got anything last time is that a nice woman from MAAST took me under her fin and showed me the nets. But I can recognize some things. Blennies. Seahorses. Pipefish. Frogfish (most likely). From what I understand, if I find a nice clump of seaweed, there's no telling what will introduce itself! As far as I can tell, there is no law against taking marine vegetation (my primary purpose this time) as long as you have a license, but I'll double-check with TPWD some time this week. And I'll try to remember to give a report about where I go and what I see and all that. ej

I went on Big Bird's 2nd Annual Collecting trip to Port A several weeks ago and came home with 3 blennies, who all made the trip home successfully and who have all adjusted to living in a much smaller environment. Well, I've decided it's time to go back and bring them some delicacies from the old home ground, namely some macroalgae and seagrass. I figure I can probably manage to collect some of that without any help. I need to do it before my fishing license runs out the end of the month, so next Monday's the day. I'll go Sunday evening, so I might go out and see if I can net a few peppermints, but really I don't need more critters from my tank. That doesn't mean I can do a little catch-and-release for practice. Anyway, if there's anything anyone wants that I might come across while I'm poking around and they let me know, I'd be glad to do my best to invite whatever it is along and be a good travel steward for him or her. I know it's a long shot that there's anything someone might want and an even longer shot that I'd cross paths with whatever the desired critter is, but I thought I'd make the offer anyway. ej

Is there anyway to limit the area xenia will take over? Like if it's at the top of a finger of rock so it's sort of on an island, would it be easier to limit it to that finger, so to speak? I like the movement of xenia so I might want to try it at some point, so I've been wondering about methods to keep it but still keep it confined. ej

Do you keep a tank first-aid kit? I keep saltwater and RO/DI water on hand, but nothing else, really. Oh, the test kits. I've heard some people keep a sponge in their sump in case they need to set up a QT quickly. Is there anything else I should keep on hand in case it's the middle of the night and something goes terribly wrong? ej PS Do I ask too many off-the-wall questions?

I'm thinking about my next tank, as I often do. I'm thinking it would be cool to have a sort of in-tank refugium for pods. Like put a little cave of live rock near the bottom of the pile with openings too small for fish to get in there to eat too many of the little guys. 1. Is there a good reason not to do this? 2. If I do this, do I need to come up with a way for them to have some light, or are they okay in darkness? 3. If I do this, is it more important for them to have sand area or water volume? ej

I usually do water changes in the evening, because that's when it's most convenient for me. But I wonder if there are other factors besides convenience that I should be taking into account. I know that pH tends to be lower in the morning than in the evening. I don't know if there are any other chemistry-factors that have a rhythmic swing. I was just thinking if I were having trouble with low pH, for instance, it might be marginally better to change the water in the morning, when the pH is at its lowest. Mostly I'm just curious. I suspect the answer will be that people don't think it makes much difference, but I could be wrong. I am with discouraging regularity. Anyone else wonder about this kind of thing? ej

Are there slides or whatever available for those of us would couldn't be at the meeting? I thought about y'all yesterday. ej

I haven't been doing this long enough to get burned out yet, but sometimes it seems to me like there can be a tendency to spend more time *working* on a tank than *enjoying* a tank. I don't know if that makes any sense to anyone but me. Maybe it would help if you spent some time just being with the tank. After some time of doing that (and I don't mean like 15 mins), maybe you'll find yourself thinking about what you'd like to do next with it. Taking it down is an option. Stepping up to some challenge in the hobby that has fascinated you before but you've never got around to it is an option. Maybe morphing into a simpler tank, clearing out the corals and getting some fish that you kinda regret not being able to keep now because they're not reef-safe, but they look way cool.Or maybe just coasting for a while and watch what changes will continue to take place in your tank. Any of those things are okay, as well as a bunch of other options that I haven't mentioned. Honestly, from what I've seen, it almost seems like getting out is more work (in the short run), but if it's what you want to do, maybe you can spend some time planning how to manage the take-down, just has you spent some time planning how to get your tank to where it is now. Good luck, whatever direction you take. ej