Electrokate

Hi where have all the tulips gone? They were a plague a few years ago... I can't say I exactly want to purchase these but I will swap for them. I am doing an experiment with manjanos. Acclimated one down to brackish, and if it does well long term will be selling or giving them to some brackish tank fans to play with to see if they work out long term. Kate

Are you looking for gracillaria? I am thinking of setting up a group buy... have not seen this locally in a while but I known a couple places in Florida have the stuff. Not cheap though. Thanks, kate

Hi I was going to toss this old Seio, plugged it in and it works. Downside is I lost some of the pieces. So if you already use Seio 620 pumps you could take it in case one of yours goes out Thanks, Kate

Hi, I know this is a long shot. Got a use for old Olympus OM series lenses, as I bought an adaptor for my EOS camera. An Oly OM1 at goodwill is worth about 10 bucks. On ebay 250. So I know I will have to pay to get the lenses I am after. But I can pay in frags (: I'm using my husband's Dad's old lens right now, but his other lens is full of dust and mold so hoping to find some clean ones. Also going to be getting an adapter for screw in lenses (M42 mount) so if you got an old pile of camera gear you want to get rid of shoot me a message, I will see if it's anything I can use. Thanks, Kate

And people wonder why I only keep gartersnakes... I actually just bought a bike modified with a rack to carry up to 200 pounds so the owner could ride with his snake. So I can get liverock, sand and salt on my bike. Yuck. Too much work. I will get beer and pizza on my bike like a normal Portlander. Kate

Wet spot or world of wet pets but you might want to call first in case they are out. I keep them in a 4 x 12 bag with minimal water and the bag as full of air as possible,and rinse every couple days when I feed them to the fish. They have lasted weeks this way. Of course they are in the fridge which some people think is “weird" or even "gross". Whatever... (:

I do have a pair of orange spot filefish. I need to track down some algae for them to try spawning into, supposedly they prefer gracillaria. The grammas also like it and drag it into their nest to bind to the egg mass. Kate

Did they turn to brown or bleach? Have you tried moving them around the tank? I frag my montis all the time and get different color results from frags in different places in the same tank. It may be that your tank has nitrate or phosphate levels that are just barely enough to start browning certain things out, in which case just a little tweaking of your water will put the parameters back where you want them. In my case I got better color on all my montis when I started rinsing frozen fish food before serving. Gets rid of the "juice" which is liquid pollution, and sometimes carries nasty bacteria. Acros look better too. Phosphate was at the lowest level Seachem can read, but apparently that is enough to brown SPS. No nitrate was found. Also switched salt after finding phosphate 2x higher in newly made up water than in my tank... that will likely help too. I hope it works out. Let us know what you try, and how it goes. Blue monti sounds really cool, as does yellow. Never seen either, so hope you can get them going again and sell me some frags. Kate

Hi That is funny, yeah I worked at Extreme Marine... that was interesting. Had no marine experience to speak of and everyone would take off and leave me there, with no prices or names on the tanks. Probably cost them a bundle in sales. Met some really great people though. What is your real name? Mine's Kate Breimayer for the record... Is your screen name related to J-roc of Trailer Park Boys? That would be really funny since that show kinda reminds me of people I knew in Oly, who shall remain nameless. This is not Jay Rasmussen is it? He had a great tank. Kate

Here are a couple more shots: Rented a lens last weekend so I could take full tank shots, most of which were soft... grr. Could be worse, I could have bought it (: With the my lens: Frag. Ok well formerly a frag, now kinda getting to just be a colony. Got a pink birdsnest on a golf tee twice that size which was a frag a couple months ago. Man am I lazy. Smaller frag: Going to trade this one for a smaller one pretty soon, it's getting out of control: Also getting to be a bit much with all the sps, but I can move it to the 55: Here's a mad grower from Upscales, which I think is the same as the ORA green and orange birdsnest: Note the acid green cyano, the reason I have held all my frags. Don't want to share that love. It's getting better since I started rinsing the fish food, and am switching to ESV salt instead of Instant Ocean, and I have to say phosphate certainly has not prevented my coral from growing at a ridiculous rate. Or maybe the algae get the phosphate before the coral do. I tried a phosphate absorber and the phosphate went up so will try another brand of that. Actually not sure it is cyano. Probably ought to put it under a microscope to be sure. Snails and fish eat it, and erythromycin does not.

Looks like I am coming to your house... Let me know if it is still around. PM'ing my phone number Thanks, Kate

Got a nice Radiant Wrasse from Nick/Rose City for the 55. Great fish, not so great picture... This copperband has been in there a couple months. It prefers home made fish food over aiptasia. Grrr... Yeah I know it had something on the tail. It's gone the next day so not lympho. Probably just detritus from it's favorite hole in the rock wall. Here's a current shot of the female filefish. Thought I had 2 females, but the bigger skinnier hyper mean one is sorta starting to show spots on the flap fin, indicating it's male. Can't get a decent picture of it unfortunately, it never stops racing around the tank flicking it's fins when it sees me... it's always begging for food and then defending it. Don't think I posted this one yet, it's from right after I calibrated my lens. Probably should have done that a while ago (: Now I need a monitor calibration tool of some kind, my monitor driver and/or Windows 7 is jacking the color around so I can't tell if my pictures need altering.

Looks great, hope things go smoothly from now on. Course in this hobby... you just never know (: Kate

You can raise them but it means daily work for a while. A friend gave me a batch once, they were ok floating as plankton except that if two encountered each other they would like as not rip a limb off and eat it. When they went to the bottom (settled) and assumed their adult form they were very territorial. I don't know how long that stage lasts, you can keep them in groups as adults, or maybe it was a peculiarity to my methods. I lost the babies about a week after settlement as a leak dripped freshwater while I was out of town. Feeding them is not super hard but I did have to siphon what fell to the bottom which meant daily water changes. For like 6 weeks straight. I know someone who had much better luck, using babies from the same tank I got mine from, in a much better system with commercial aquaculture food. If you have the time and energy raising some is fun. Doing the cleaning really only involves like 15 minutes per day. If you had them you'd stare at them for 15 anyway so might as well do the cleaning at that time (: Kate

Thanks, should have looked at these threads before the meeting. I ordered from Florida Aqua Farms, L strain rotifers. At some point will have to track down the SS strain. If you want some live phyto I should have it in a couple weeks. I know it's not for everyone. Kind of a pain. Kate

Most of my pictures came out really dark and high contrast, according to the monitor I use to correct. On a Mac or Linux driver they look pale and washed out. Starting to see why pro photographers get special monitors. Here are some of them, and I hope to fix the others when I figure out the problem with the monitor driver/windows. Kshack's system is amazing and much better lit than my pictures show. The tabling acro is splendid and huge, and grown from an ORA frag too! It's great to see that level of success with aquacultured coral. Food and company were great too, thanks! Kate

I could pick you up at the max stop, it's right by 205. Or pick you up if you are not far. Kate

Thanks, I am kinda depressed though. The Melanurus wrasse and his mates were looking ready to spawn yesterday. Today I found the female in that last set of pictures on the floor. She was much thinner, so I guess they did spawn and somehow she got through the eggcrate. Seems like she was way too big for that... She was a really pretty one for a female.

Hi, Time to set the cultures back up, hoping someone wants to sell me some starts so I don't have to order everything. Am in Portland, planning on making the next meeting. Thanks, Kate

August 2010 pictures: and one of his mates: Been having cyano troubles but started rinsing all frozen food a couple weeks ago before feeding, and there is noticable improvment. Also got a Seachem phosphate test which showed phosphate in the tap water and double that in newly made Instant Ocean. Switching to ESV 3 part salt, added phosphate remover to the 120. Reduced algae in the 55 which has no phosphate remover makes me thing the rinsing is what is helping. Kate

I will come. Have space in my car for 3 people, anyone want to carpool? I live near Foster and I205.

USPS priority to adjacent states has always been fine for me, arrives in under 48 hours. I do follow USPS regs RE insulated box, labeling and packing with absorbent materials. In heat or with delicate shipments I go to a major office IE downtown or airport. Kate

I can also use some, let me know what is not taken. Thanks, Kate

Thanks I will check Fish first, prefer local stock if I can get it. I already hatch brine shrimp so that's no problem, but man don't let cyano get in their tank. It loves the brine shrimp's waste and grows right on the seahorses. Thanks again, Kate

Thanks all, I will check with Nick... I know they are not reef safe, but I keep mine with certain coral that I either want gone or that I have enough to gamble with, and they don't kill it. So far (: They make the monti digitata grow more dense in skeleton with recessed polyps, like it appears when wild grown. Smaller polyps.