Snow snow everywhere I look

Well fall has turned into winter here in the lovely state of Minnesota. For those of you that know me, snow is a 4 letter word in my vocabulary. Ok, So I'll agree that it looks pretty right after it falls and everything is quiet around here, but then it turns to snirt (snow mixed with black soil/dirt) and you get stuck driving in it, it bogs down the drive to work and sometimes prevents the drive home. As it turns out Pepper absolutely loves the snow! It was so fun watching her play in it for the first time. She would jump, prance, sit, roll it and smile all the while doing so. Even now it is hard to get her to come in from playing outside.

I was thankful back in November during our first big snow fall and we had lost power for more than 24 hours. So happy that the tank was still empty and I didn't need to figure out how to handle the livestock when I was snowed in and had to be rescued. With the snow came lots of time for knitting projects. I finally, seriously took it up after being tired of knitting dishclothes and have found a huge fiber addiction. I'm in love with things like merino wool, double point needles and heel turns.

I received the safety award from the County Commissioners this past week. I know safety..big whop right...well as it turned out my boss nominated me after being with the county for 3 years (short time frame for them) and it was for all the work I've done above and beyond what is required. Things like grant writing to get radios for all the firefighters and EMS/EMT in our county, assisting with the transition to ARMER (state's narrowband, digital radio system that we will be changing over to before 1/2013 due to FCC requirements), etc. It was a great night and made even better when he got the distinguished service award (giving me the look of death in the process and giggling when they read his nomination). So it turned out 2 of the 4 people in our office took away 2 of the 4 big awards given out that night!

Thankfully spring is just around the corner!

Fall colors have come and gone

Well it's been a while since I posted so I thought I'd do a quick update here for people. September was a busy month for us at home. We celebrated with friends as they bought a new home, my mom came to visit from Virgina for my 30th birthday, and a day was spent with Ed and Pepper at Minneopa State Park in Mankato trying to view fall colors before they were totally gone. The falls were beautiful especially after all the rain that turned to flooding in September.

 

October 20th was our third anniversary as husband and wife, and we've gone through another staffing change at work loosing Brooke (my old job) so it will be crazy still. Quynn came up for a visit while Sean interviewed in the cities and hopefully they will be moving up here soon!

The tank remains empty, but Ed has started to work on his CSA (community supported agriculture) business and we have three people so far wanting shares! I have a feeling the tank will remain empty a little while longer, I'll just have to daydream and pretend it's full of water and marine life until then. This also grants me with plenty of time to design the rockwork and decide which species will belong in the tank.

Slow and Steady

Well sometimes I wish I could be more like the hare instead of the tortoise, but then I remind myself that slow and steady wins the race! Progress on my ocean is a bit slow lately. Ed became unemployed in May, on his birthday no less, so my project instead came to a bit of a halt. This summer has also been pretty busy for us. We enjoyed our first Twins game together at Target Field with Mike and Amy, Ed finished his auqaponics tanks (just need fish), went camping with Mike, Andy and Heather at Cascade River State Park and Pepper our newest addition to the family had a blast! On our way north the Prius hit 100,000 miles and 3 years of age and on our hike Eddie (the collie) tried to take Mike into the river with him to cool off! But as fall is coming and my 30th brithday is fast approaching I decided it was time to get back to building my reef tank.

This past weekend I got the fish wall painted, Ed cut the holes for the plumbing to run through and I started getting the sump ready to go. After removing some of the glass "wings" (the previous owner placed 8 peices of glass along various parts of the sides of the tanks to hold up egg crate and they looked kinda like wings) and only having one small cut from using the box knife, I started to layout the sections of the sump before cutting the acrylic baffles. After placing the skimmer (yes I know the cup is missing in the picture) and return pump in the sump I realized its way to narrow, but being the Davis family member I am it will be used anyways. Needless to say the baffles didn't get cut and placed this weekend and again another delimma has raised it's ugly head. On the bright side, I am just another small step closer to having running water!

The new goal/deadline is to have the baffles placed this coming weekend, get the plumbing installed before the birthday, rock and sand sometime this fall and running water by Christmas at the latest.

Location, Location, Location...

As mentioned in the previous post, part of my debate was where do I want to put this piece of the ocean? First I thought, wouldn't it be a nice feature in the living room. The problems with the living room are that it's on the main floor, so total weight of the system would play a factor, there is a huge bay window on one end, the wall opposite has a heat/cooling vent (could pose a problem with temperature fluctuations), and there is another smaller window as well. So natural light, great! Downside, lots of algal problems....Also, size of the tank would be limited due to weight capacity and support in the floor.  I was still liking this idea, and thought a 46gallon bowfront would be a nice addition. Then after looking at the type of fish I wanted to keep, I realized the tank would be too small. I needed at least a 75gallon and by the time we add rock, sand, water, etc it would be pushing the weight. The other problem is where to put the sump/reservoir. This last part is a huge key to making the reeftank work well. It's where we "hide" our equipment (protein skimmer, pumps, heater, etc), also it allows for extra capacity and water treatment (adding live rock and sand acts as a filter for nutrients). So it would have to go underneath the tank in the cabinet, again adding to the weight issue. 

Another thought was to put it into my room/the den. There I could enjoy it while on the computer, scrapbooking etc. The downside was that it couldn't be shown off as much as I wanted. (If I was gonna invest money into this project, I wanted as many people to enjoy it when coming to our home.) And the same rules to the living room applied. I had also contemplated putting in in our bedroom, since it is a large room, thinking it would be peaceful to look at that while falling asleep or waking up. Again the same problems came into effect, except with this room being on the 2nd floor of our home the weight issue was a major factor.

Of course my wonderful husband came up with an option that I originally objected to because it's in a room we never ever use...the basement. When we bought our home last year, it came with a partially completed basement. In the basement is a huge fireplace, a sink with drinking fountain (odd right), an odd square in the corner that was linoleum and the rest of the floor was a lovely burnt orange and black carpet! The basement would allow for any size tank I wanted, as the weight wouldn't be a problem since it'd rest on the concrete floor, there are very small windows (2 of them), and would provide the most flexibility in where to put it.  But we didn't and don't use the basement, so I hated the idea of putting a gorgeous reeftank down there.

Ed's persistence won me over eventually, and we decided that we'd move the TV, Wii, etc downstairs and it could be a chillax type of room. (He gave up his "man cave" so that we could have a nice location for my tank.) Also, with the linoleum we were able to create...ta da...the fish room! Ed came up with the idea for a wall where the funny square patch was to place my sump/reservoir in, hide all my equipment, the rubbermaid garbage can full of saltwater, etc after listening to me go on and on about fish rooms seen in posts on TCMAS and Reef Addicts. It was perfect! So it was then time to go big or go home...I found an awesome deal on a used 150 gallon glass tank (glass because it's easier to clean with the coralline and doesn't scratch like acrylic, also it's much cheaper) that came with the stand, the sump, and the lights which save a TON of $$. So the total amount of water flowing through this system will be 190 gallons! The next step was to actually build the wall. I've included pictures of my fish room so far. Of course, nothing too exciting is in there, just empty tanks, but hey! it's exciting for me.

The dream, the goal, the debate...

Okay so as mentioned previously, I wanted to be a marine biologist and more specifically the dream was to work at the Monterey Bay Aquarium and design self-sustaining ecosystems. Basically I wanted to work in a place where I could design a tank system (keep in mind my favorite exhibit there is the giant kelp forest which is 50' high and has sharks) that we wouldn't have to feed it's inhabitants. Ok I never got to that point, but when thinking about what hobby I'd like to start up this came to mind again. Also, Ed mentioned doing a saltwater tank since it's something I've always loved and admired.  This would also be a nice piece of home for me that I can come and enjoy after a stressful day at work, or can throw my mask on and pretend I was scuba diving.  In comes the primary questions...what size of tank, where do I put it, what kind of critters do I want to keep, etc etc

First step, get and read The Conscientious Marine Aquarist. I knew that I didn't want a typical fish only system (keep in mind the self-sustaining ecosystem thing) and would probably get bored with a fish and live rock only system. Everything I knew about freshwater told me that the bigger the system, the more easily parameters can be maintained and kept at constant levels. Well here's the rub, saltwater systems are expensive! I had no idea how much until we started to just price stuff out at the local store in Mankato. This happened to be PetCo or the other option is PetExpo which didn't have much for resources in Saltwater (PetExpo was much better though). We drove to the cities and checked out Ocean Devotion and Saltwater Empire as well. So the bigger the tank, the more stable it is, the more $$$ it takes to start up. That was one debate, the next was location which we'll get into later and the third was what critters did I want to keep.

After reading my book, I learned more about how cyanide is used on reefs as a collection method. The problem is that it kills the reef that they were collected from, and fish normally don't do well after being gassed. The other great thing about the hobby is that there is more and more captive breeding taking place as well as aqua cultured/fragging of corals (taking one piece and splitting it apart into many). That was very encouraging to me. So the goal for my new reef tank is to obtain species of fish, invertebrates and coral that have either been tank raised or collected by netting. Of course, eventually, I'd like to have this system be as self-sustaining as possible.

The debate is do I get critters that would only be found in one ecoregion (Hawaii or Florida Keys for example) or do I select critters that I enjoy and think would work well in my display tank. I know that I love the pacific sailfin tang, green chromis (these guys school), clownfish (who wouldn't love to have a nemo), neon gobies, etc. The problem is that they aren't all from the same ecoregion but they do get along well in a large community tank. The only problem with being a "purist," as Ed would call it, is that it is much more difficult to find items to stick in there but it would probably be the "best fit" for compatibility for everything in the tank.

And so the debate rolls on....

Bringing a peice of the ocean home to Minnesota

This project got started when I had to find something to do in the winters to keep busy rather than play world of warcraft, etc. I grew up in California and Minnesota (since 2nd grade) but spent all my summers in California with my dad and relatives on both sides of my family. I am a true California native, born and bred and miss that beautiful state. Although, Minnesota has started to grow on me there are somethings that I still miss. Such as mountains, a real beach (sorry but lake shores are not beaches!), the ocean, the desert, and snow that only stays on the ground for a few hours.

The thing I miss the most is the ocean though. My dad spoiled me when I was younger and got my brother and I certified as scuba divers so that we could explore the world around us. I will never forget the crystal clear water of Catalina Island, the warmth of a dive off of Carlsbad and my favorite was to feed sea urchins to the Garibaldi that would nibble on my hair. So when looking for something to do this winter to add to my list of hobbies I decided it was time to start a saltwater tank, and not just any saltwater tank but a reef tank.

Since I knew this was going to be much more difficult than the freshwater tanks I've had before I knew I needed to spend time doing research on what is needed, how the ecosystem should be designed (did I mention I'm a biologist), etc. After searching online I found some great websites and communities to assist me with my desire to start a reef tank as well as some great publications/books. After reading, asking questions, etc I invested some of my hard earned tip money (the job in the winter to keep my busy since I hate to go outside) in a used 150 gallon glass aquarium, stand, 40 gallon breeder, and a 72" auqlight pro with HQI lamps, lunar lamps and 460 nm actinics. Don't worry there will be many photos! And thus a project was born...

Rules to the new tank build...anything goes! The husband, Ed, can help with construction, etc but the tank is MINE! We both agreed that it will be my project and he can be my labor force.