Category Archives: Pets

The salty tank is settling in nicely. Water parameters are pretty stable and I should now be able to get away with just testing the water chemistry once a month (in case I need to make tweaks to my dosing computer).

I bought a couple of small clams (I love clams!) and a purple monti from an online store called Coral Crazy. His online shop looks clean and it was so easy to use (refreshing!). Turns out Andrew (the owner) lives local to me so he even dropped off my order himself and gave me a couple of free frags too. Top guy, super passionate and clearly in it for the love not the money (he’s a sparky by trade). I’m pretty sure I’ll be buying more goodies from him in future!!!

An original watercolor by Albert Namatjira, painted around 1954.

Albert Namatjira (28 July 1902 – 8 August 1959) is perhaps Australia’s best known Aboriginal painter, with his work forming one of the foundations of contemporary Indigenous Australian art.

Christina’s Dad Tony let me at his old tank in 2007. Christina and I managed to turn it from a dark scary algae breeding box into this lovely tank. It’s been doing great but he’s ready to go the next level and I’ve been enlisted to help!

Tony’s goal is to create a tank visually inspired by Albert Namatjira’s Australian landscape paintings. A lot of his work features a tree as a focal point in the foreground (usually far left or right) and blue mountain scapes in the distance. Re-creating the depth of his paintings will be a great challenge.

I say “I” a lot but this really is a team effort. Christina and Tony are in the boat with me and they’re both very much going to be sharing the driving.

A few weeks ago we ordered a 4x2x2 tank from the same guy that has been building tanks since my Dad was around and in business (Adrian from Ingleburn) and it was delivered last Saturday. Same 4ft width as his current tank (it’ll be sitting in the same place), taller but a lot deeper. The extra depth will really help us with trying to achieve the depth found in Namatjira’s paintings.

4x2x2 eurobraced (no glass panel on top to block the light) and super clear starphire glass all round. Like a bathtub. It looks so much bigger than his old tank (because it is!). The depth makes all the difference.

That same Saturday we went rock shopping at Bonsai Environment in Vineyard. Amazing shop with the most ridiculously inspiring bonsai garden, no photos allowed though, such a shame!

The rocks were about $40/rock so we bought a few. We might end up needing less, or more, we’re not sure!

More updates as they come!

Our little Mia mow mow’s a brave girl. Stitches removed (from desexing). Only took a second, all done, all good!

Gross out on that!

Christina and I made the move to desex Mia earlier this week. She’s doing well, in fact no different to usual except her tummy looks gross and her purring has gotten louder, almost as if she’s got some phlegm caught in her throat.

I’m running a black background on the tank again now. Click here for a bigger pic.

And here’s a moonlight shot, just before lights out at 10pm.

I removed these 6 wave making pumps.

And replaced it with 2 of these bad boys.

Wireless (yes, geeking out to the max) controllers which communicate to each other and control the water flow from 2 pumps on opposing ends of the tank.

I’ve been eyeing these pumps for a few months now. They’re designed in the US and though noisy (the motors are on the outside so there’s no ugly wiring on the inside of your tank) they’re also regarded by many as the best pump out there. At $700/pump they’re also the most expensive pumps you can buy!

I’m pretty sure that if the shop I bought them from looked at their stats the person giving them the most hits to the MP40w ES product page has been me! I came so close to hitting the ‘buy now’ button so many times. In the end I took up the shop’s offer of beating anyone else’s price by 10%. I found the pumps for $600 elsewhere and all up that saved me a decent $310.

If you’re interested, there’s more info on this pump here and an interesting wave video here.

I dropped into Kims yesterday and dropped some serious dosh on some SPS.

Baller move = true.
Contradict myself = true.

I really did love the idea of growing out some aqua-cultured frags but as usual impatience got the better of me! I’m really hoping, and doing my best to make sure these corals not only survive, but thrive.

I was at the Post Office today and I bought a pack of stamps. Fish stamps?! The stars must be aligned!

Phew she loves it!

Christina and I have been looking around for a tall scratcher/tree for Mia for ages now. The ones in the shops are way overpriced ($400 what the?!) but we finally found a tall and cheap one on eBay. It’s ugly, but hey, she uses it so it’s all good!