Frag Swap

Well, the swap is complete... Over the weekend my friend delivered some new inhabitants for Surfquarium in exchange for all of the Xenia and Mushrooms I've been exporting to his tank. I've been wanting to try more scleractinians (stony corals) in Surfquarium, but didn't want to spend money on things I'm not sure will do well. Apparently some of the frags I received weren't doing as well as hoped in my friends tanks, so we both agreed to try them in Surfquarium, where at least we know that Xenia and Corallimorpharia do well. As a result Surfquarium is now home to a variety of Scleractinian frags (Echinopora sp.; 3 different Acropora sp.; Pocillopora damicornis; and some Ricordia sp. - All pictured above). Hopefully they all do well, though I'm not sure if my lights are powerful enough for the Acroporas and possibly the Pocillopora. This will be the source of continuous monitoring over the coming days and weeks, and I'll provide updates as they come - I'm hoping for all the best.

House Cleaning

In January I decided that my tank was becoming too overgrown with too few things. The Xenia and the mushroom corallimorphs have been multiplying like crazy, out competing just about everything and generally taking over Surfquarium (See 'The New Look of Surfquarium" Post from December 2007). Last week I invited a friend over and gave him salvage rights to as many Xenia as he could fit into a bag. After a good 30 minutes of scraping bases off of live rock, my tank has now been thinned out and this is a good thing. My yellow Sarcophyton now has room to grow and looks better than it has in months. I also added a new scleractinian coral frag (Its a species in the family Faviidae, but I haven't fully I.D'd it yet), and will be receiving some other new frags from my friend in exchange for all the Xenia (And some mushrooms) that I gave him. In this post I submit the before (above) and after (below) photos...
























I'll post again soon with pics of the new frags. I also solved my burned out Actinic lightbulb this week... amazing how much better things look when the have the proper lighting to get them through their day.

Sorry Folks, but Happy New Year!

Hi there Cyberspace,
sorry again about the lack of updates - but i have a good excuse this time. 6 days after the new year I broke my thumb whilst tripping over the ball in a highly contested indoor soccer match.
Thumb required surgery and I am only able to type again this week. No typing, plus no tinkering or photography on Surfquarium = lack of updates. I've got a burned out actinic bulb that needs dealing with, and I've made arrangements with a friend to swap some Xenia (which is overgrowing everything) for some Ricordia. Changes will come soon, which means updates should come soon as well... until then, Happy New Year!.

The new look of Surfquarium

Hi again cyberspace...
Sorry for the long delay in posts - I've been busy with real world stuff which leaves little time for blogging. Thanks for all of the recent comments I have been receiving despite my long absence from the blogosphere. Keep reading and keep commenting, I really appreciate the feedback.

Anyway, since the last update many changes have occurred in Surfquarium. I exported a few mushrooms, a few Xenia's, and the larger of my two yellow toadstool leathers. My research lab gained a new member who was looking for some life to add to his new 80 gallon tank, and these guys were either getting too large for (leather) or overpopulating (mushrooms and Xenia) Surfquarium, so off they went into a new home. I've been bugging him for photos of their new lair, but so far no photos.

On a natural coral reef, space is usually the ultimate limiting resource. This also holds true in Surfquarium, where mushrooms and Xenia were quick to colonize the empty space left by the exported creatures. I now seem to have a mushroom side (left) and a Xenia side (right) in surfquarium, with my anemone (E. quadricolor) holding down the middle. The photo at the top of this post represents the new look of Surfquarium.

Coral See

For those of you who are into keeping Acroporids (more commonly called Staghorn corals), the following message and accompanying website may be of interest:

>Carden Wallace and myself are trialling an on-line Acropora >identification program and an introductory guide to the Acropora >corals. The address is: www.coralsee.org If you have any problems >using the site or suggestions we would appreciate feedback.
>
>thanks
>
>Dr. Paul Muir
>Museum of Tropical Queensland

For those of you who may not recognize the names of those involved, Drs. Wallace and Muir are two of the foremost coral taxonomists in the world. In addition, Dr. Wallace is an Acroporid specialist and has published a series of books, CD-ROMS, and scientific papers chronicling and describing "Staghorn Corals of the World".

In just playing around with the website briefly, it helps to know a little bit about the terminology associated with coral identification and taxonomy in order to get a proper I.D. - but it's not absolutely necessary. Since the website is set up by geographic location, it also helps to know a little about the natural history of the animal (i.e. where it would live in nature). As with all visual guides, mis-identification by untrained users is highly possible, but the website will get you within about 6 reasonable choices as to the identification of the Acroporid you are trying to identify.

The website seems to only include members of the genus Acropora, and not those of Montipora, even though both genera fall within the Family Acroporidae. However, I did not extensively explore the site yet, so Montipora sp. may be represented somewhere within the huge data base.

Overall, this website seems like it would be of great interest to reef keepers out there. Although I don't keep any Acroporids in Surfquarium at the moment (nor do I plan to), I thought I'd pass this along to my faithful readers (if you do in fact exist).