Building Gurgly – Kallor’s 125ish gallon reef tank

[Kallor]

Sadly B.B. the helfrichi firefish died of her injuries Tuesday night. Her eye had healed some, but the gash in her throat just got worse and worse. I wish I could have helped her somehow  :-(

 

On a happier note, attached is a (re)growth gif of the red montiporra. I know this is one of the easiest corals to grow, so I'm not bragging or anything but it is really cool to see it growing back! This is just a bit over 2 weeks of regrowth.

 

Edited November 7, 2014 by Kallor

[YHSublime]

Cool gif! I thought my phone was acting up!

[DuffyGeos]

That is cool, I think all pics of coral growth should be done like this!

 

Of course I don't have a clue how to do it, but I assume it starts with taking the picture in the exact same spot.

 

Them some computer black magic.

 

I always have problems compressing using the Lempel-Ziv-Welch (LZW) lossless data compression technique.

[Kallor]

Cool gif! I thought my phone was acting up!

 

 

That is cool, I think all pics of coral growth should be done like this!

 

Of course I don't have a clue how to do it, but I assume it starts with taking the picture in the exact same spot.

 

Them some computer black magic.

 

I always have problems compressing using the Lempel-Ziv-Welch (LZW) lossless data compression technique.

Thanks for the kind words!

 

I couldn't align the shots perfectly when I took them (though I got close). What really help with getting things 'close enough' was using the lens hood and pushing the camera square on the side of the aquarium. That at least ensured the shots were from the exact same distance. After that, just a bit of Photoshop work to tweak the alignment and make an animated gif. The coloring of the shots haven't been adjusted - it really is more colorful in the current state :-) If any of you guys have a before/after you want me to animate like this, feel free to shoot me a message and I'm sure I can take care of it for you.

[Kallor]

Making Homemade Fish Food

 

One of my weekend projects was to make my second batch of homemade fish food. This time I took a few pictures of the process. . . which was tricky given how messy your hands get

 

I ended up making almost 2 lbs of food. The ingredient cost was about $40. Of that, $20 was fresh stuff from Whole Foods, about $10 worth of frozen brine and mysis, and about $10 worth of selcon. The garlic and nori I already had laying around (and are so cheap as to not impact the total cost).

 

To get this much of something like Rod's Food, it would cost about $100. I have a hunch that Rod's Food have a lot more added water as well, so I might be off by a factor or two. But either way, it is certainly cost effective to make this stuff yourself. And it is also messy enough to illustrate that Rod's Food is fairly priced.

 

So my ingredients were:

• 4-5 sheets of nori (pre-soaked in RO/DI and then drained)
• Frozen brine shrimp (thawed and rinsed)
• Frozen mysis shrimp (thawed and rinsed)
• Tuna steak (fresh)
• Fatty tuna belly (fresh)
• Jumbo shrimp (fresh)
• Jumbo scallop (fresh)
• Smelt (fresh)
• Squid with tentacles (fresh)
• Diced organic garlic (2 tablespoons or so)
• Selcon (nearly a fully container)

The proof of the pudding is in the eating, and my fish seem to thoroughly enjoy this food. Everything is already rinsed and fortified, so I can put it directly in the tank.

 

Next time I'm going to try to get more ingredients, like frozen cyclopeeze.

 

With all the jibber jabber out of the way, here are some photos!

 

Frozen brine and mysis

 

Rinsing and thawing the brine and mysis

 

Fresh ingredients. The Avast cup has the nori sheets in it.

 

At this point, the bowl had selcon, brine, mysis and jumbo shrimp, along with the smelt.

 

The end result!

[YHSublime]

Looks great! Your last batch is still doing me well, all fish eat it with vigor.

[DuffyGeos]

That looks good........I think I need sushi for lunch

 

Great pics as usual, it almost looks like Gourmet Magazine.

Edited November 10, 2014 by DuffyGeos

[Kallor]

That looks good........I think I need sushi for lunch

 

Great pics as usual, it almost looks like Gourmet Magazine.

Thanks for the kind words! That fatty tuna looked pretty darn tasty - if it were sushi grade I would have had a hard time not eating it myself

[Kallor]

Looks great! Your last batch is still doing me well, all fish eat it with vigor.

 

Glad your underwater-family  likes it! This time I added the nori at the very end - after soaking it. I very gently mixed it. I'm hoping to avoid the overly thick consistency the last batch had . . . it seems better so far :-)

[YHSublime]

What's going on with the tank!?