Category Archives: Pets

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!

I’m really happy with the way I’ve set up my LED lights and industrial timers. I’ve got control over 9 rows of lights in total and I can set any combination I like so I’ve got something like this:

Morning
– 1 white light in the middle
– 3 white lights left middle and right
– 3 white and 3 blue lights left middle and right
– 6 whites and 3 blue lights left middle and right
– 3 white and 3 blue lights left middle and right
– 3 blue lights left middle and right and one middle white light
– 1 blue light in the middle

Hard to describe! But basically I’m trying to emulate a sunrise and sunset throughout 10 hours. See photos below for 2 shots, one at 4pm, the one after at 9pm.

4pm.

9pm.

I got a lot of goodies in the mail yesterday and had so much fun putting it all together (in the zone!).

Bubble Magus BM-T01 Dosing pump + accessories. The dosing pump has a micro-computer in it and it’ll allow me to automatically dose the correct amount of Calcium, Alkalinity and Magnesium to the tank in order to keep my levels correct for keeping acropora corals (the pinnacle of reef keeping!).

My weenie bike parts scale is actually being used for it’s intended use! Instead of using brand name aquarium products, for Calcium I’m using Damprid. For Alkalinity I’m using Bi-Carb Soda and for Magnesium I’m using Epsom Salts, all of which I sourced for 1/5th the price of branded goods from the local Coles.

Containers for Calcium, Alkalinity and Magnesium.

Computer all dialled in and ready to go.

Hoses in position on the sump.

The engine room (I’ve also installed a carbon reactor which is a lot more efficient than putting a bag of carbon in the sump).

Ph meter lets me check the Ph at a glance. One less water test I have to do = a good thing!

2 little nano-mags placed permanently on the top braces allow me to clean the glass easily (so salt creep doesn’t block the lights!).

Geeking out, hard.

Mia’s 4.5months old now. We’ve let her into the bedroom over the past few weeks and she’s not peed on the bed again (she did twice when we first got her). Last night we decided to not lock her up in her kitty room and she ended up hanging out in our bed, purring her head off for hours at a time, walking all over our faces and finally settling in and sleeping in between us. Yay!