2013 Filter Surfing Championships

The 2013 Filter Surfing Contest happened this weekend.  So much anxiety and speculation surrounded this weekend events, leading to much debate over who was going to take this renowned title. 

Some said Marco, some said Polo, others said it would take an act of divine intervention to make it out alive.

Let me give you a breakdown into this gruelling 3 week course:

•  3 weeks prior to event finale, re-landscape marine tank creating sand turbulence to achieve 'Novice tankmaster' status... see previous blog post
• Proceed to feed tank mates daily
• Observe feeding to establish whereabouts of contenders
• It is at this point that the bets are taken as some tankmates remain illusive
• It is around the 2 week mark that bets are finalised.

It is with the weekly tank clean (and a whole drama of its own)  that the results are verified, and we take this seriously folks, verified and audited , by a Chartered Accountant.  This is a serious contest and there's no fooling around here!

Under intense scrutiny from the clean brigade, The Wife, there in the combs of the 3rd chamber was Marco, or was it Polo?  Was he dead?!

The medical team was called in aka The Wife again!  She proceeded to remove the little Goby from the combs (after they had been out in open air for around 20min during the tank clean!) I thought for sure the little guy didn't make it but he swam off...like nothing had ever happened... straight up, back to the filter chambers!! He was determined to get back in there and did several times before we tried to net it off and deter him.

At this point only 1 Goby was seen all morning. You see The Wife has this amazing ability to see the smallest of details, like a tiny spot of orange appearing under a rock... yeah. crazy I know.  This meant Goby 1 was still in his hideout and left us in the undeniable position to conclude that the 2013 Filter Surfer Champion was GOBY 2, now known as Bruce Willis aka Die Hard!

After what I can only assume to be 3 weeks in the combs, he is slowly settling back into the main tank with the occasionally wonder upstream, no doubt he'll jump again. But I now know where to go looking!

Up and running for 8 weeks

It's been a while coming this update. So what has happened:

Firstly and most drastically was the rescape that we did on Saturday. The old scape was fundamentally good, but we struggled to see the fish and inverts alot of the time. In addition, we were running out of space to place corals as well as allowing them place to grow. So a major rethink was in order (it is also a dry run for when we move house). We removed two pieces of live rock that formed the base of the structure, and tried to create a few more overhangs. This is to help with swimming space as well as it gives us more coral placing space, surprisingly so. One of the rocks was moved to the first filtration chamber, while the bio balls that were there have been placed between the combs of the 3rd chamber. I did this so as to not change the bio filtration to much. The hope is to replace the large rock with live rock rubble and then replace the bio balls with some form of mechanical filtration. One of the sad events from the rescape seems to be the loss of one of the gobies. We are not sure if he is a fatality of the rescape or a casualty before hand as we had not seen both simultaneously 2 days before hand. The positive though, the surviving goby has housed himself under a rock that is more visible. If he survives the move, we may pair him up with a shrimp. All seems well so far. The leather is sulking big time, but I am hoping its just a prelude to shedding.

A new addition: we have made our first venture into LPS corals. On Saturday, we purchased a hammer coral. It is considered a moderately difficult coral to keep, but it will be manageable in our tank. They have been known to be surrogate anemones for clowns, and we are really hoping that happens.

The phosphate scare: after battling with algae, I finally decided to test the phosphates and see how bad it is (all other parameters were in the norm). What I saw was shocking - the phosphates were off the charts. So in with phosphate remover. I did it in 2 stages as i didn't want to shock the tank. I am happy to report that a week and a bit later, the phosphates are a little more respectable, but still some way off. But it's moving in the right direction at least.

Bye bye Aiptasia: after 3 weeks, the peppermint shrimp didn't even nibble on the Aiptasia. Also, I failed in my attempts to cover the hole with putty. So I resorted to chemical means (Aipex) and blasted them. It seems to have worked, but I will need to wait a while to confirm a good kill.

Officially a reef tank

So I went to Birchwood aquatics again to get a little water... And I am happy to report that we got water. 50 litres of RO (Reverse osmosis) water so that I didn't need to go back next weekend to get more. It appears that my tank loses roughly 2L of water everyday, so that means there is a fair amount of topping up required. That and the weekly gravel sift means a normal 25L barrel lasts a week.

But the reason I got 50l is that I cant leave the store without getting some new things for my tank. This week I decided to stay away from the fish tanks and look into corals. After looking at their display tanks for the last 3 weeks and doing some research, I decided that a few mushroom corals, a leather coral and possibly some pulsing corals would be good starters for my tank. Also, they have very good visual appeal and can withstand a beginners mistakes.

The one difficult thing about buying them, is where exactly to place them! Some like moderate water flow, while others prefer a strong water flow. Some require moderate lighting, whiles others strong lighting. Placement is everything. While these are hardy, poor water quality and placement will result in their deaths. And with their deaths, you may find some fish following them. So to say that I found this daunting, may be an understatement.

Where did I place them? With the help of my wife, i think we have managed to find suitable places for all the corals. The leather coral is at the bottom of the tank with direct light on him. Also, there should be a good direct flow from the water jet for him to be happy. The other reason for keeping him low in the tank is the fact the can grow very big and block out a lot of light in the tank. The Pulsing polyps are in a part of the tank, where the water flow is circulating back to the jet and right on the other side. Therefore the water flow is moderate and hopefully they will have time to pulse (they wont pulse if the current is to strong for them).

Lastly, I couldn't find mushrooms, so I went for white spot star polyps These are really pretty, especially under the blue lights as their tips have a luminous green in them. These require moderate to high water flow and lighting. I have place these close to the intake of the water jet,, so they can get a good flow rate as well as being positioned very high in the tank for high lighting levels.

Unfortunately, while looking at the coral tanks, I saw a pair of white rayed shrimp gobies Also know as clown or Yasha hase gobies) that were irresistible  So they came home with us as well. Unfortunately, there are no photos of these guys as we haven't seen them since we introduced them into our tank. They are known to be very shy when first being introduced into the tank and take up to a month before begin seen again. They are also known tank jumpers that require a lid to ensure they stay inside the tank. You can pair these up with a pistol shrimp. For now, I dont think I am going to do that as I bought a pair of these gobies. I worry that I may need a pair of pistol shrimps to satisfy both their needs and that may cause some heartache down the line. Lets hope these guys prefer each others company instead. I bought some clear tubing and have made 3 burrows in the tank in the hope that the gobies use these as a home.