400 gallon project

untamed · #1 05-01-2007, 04:21 AM

Always have a camera ready by the tank...

Last night as I was watching TV, there was some very loud "whacking" and I could see a blur of movement across the front of the tank.

It seems that one of the mantis found a crab and was in pursuit. I managed to snap a couple of photos of the brief battle, which was front/centre of the tank out on the open sand. The crab withstood only 3 blows. The mantis then grabbed his prey up and swam away back to his favourite hole.

Now I know what their primary food is. (This might be a good time to mention that I've also allowed the dozens of gorilla and other crabs to stay in the tank along with the mantis)

At the end, I shot a quick video. Unfortunately since the Sopranos was on TV, the background audio portion of the video is...well...not postable here....

Midknight · #2 05-01-2007, 04:55 PM

I would say the sound track would be perfict for someone getting "wacked"

justinl · #3 05-02-2007, 06:14 AM

hey great pics of the wennie hunting! lol i guess they're not hippies after all eh?

untamed · #4 05-06-2007, 10:36 PM

Things are progressing slowly. Today, I added two more fish. The first is a Blue Throat Trigger. He is proving to be difficult to photograph at the moment as he is a bit excited at the new surroundings.

The other new fish is a Yellow Tang. Every tank has to have one of these right? Actually, I'm hoping he has more of a taste for filimentous algae than the Naso Tang. We'll see. The Yellow and Naso seem to be quite pleased with by each other's company.

untamed · #5 05-06-2007, 10:41 PM

Here's an update on my phytoplankton efforts. I think I'm having more success now. This is an example of what I'm currently brewing. This batch has been going for 2 weeks now and still has a rich, green colour. (not the yellow-green that I was getting before).

Although I've played with the recipe, I think the improvement is because of:
1) Daily shaking to prevent anything from settling on the bottom.
2) 2nd and 3rd time using the same bottles. It's possible that the bottles weren't absolutely clean the first time I used them, but now they are behaving better.

I've manipulated the amount of fertilizer in the mix, but get very similar results no matter what I do.

Delphinus · #6 05-06-2007, 10:51 PM

Aw dude you have no idea how jealous I am right now. Blue throat trigger flanked by those cool gorgs; awesome picture.

untamed · #7 05-09-2007, 11:52 PM

OK...requests have been made for an updated "full tank view". All these close-ups make it hard to see the big picture.

Here's a room view...

Here's a shot that is a bit closer, but not too close.

Here's a shot of the left side, front view. You can see that I haven't cleaned the left side of the aquarium in a few days.

Here's a shot of the right side, front view.

If you look closely, you'll see that I'm starting to have a bit of a cyano problem. I'm trying not to panic about that. It is a new tank, so it is likely to go through that "phase". I just have to monitor it to ensure that it doesn't get so bad that it smothers the life out of anything. I am running some phosphate media, maybe I'll add some more or refresh the stuff that is in there.