-------------- The conservative has but little to fear from the man whose reason is the servant of his passions, but let him beware of him in whom reason has become the greatest and most terrible of the passions.These are the wreckers of outworn empires and civilisations, doubters, disintegrators, deicides.Haldane
-------------- "CO2 can't re-emit any trapped heat unless all the molecules point the right way" "All the evidence supports Creation baraminology" "If it required a mind, planning and design, it isn't materialistic." "Jews and Christians are Muslims."
looks like a cardinalfish; likely the Pajama Cardinalfish (Sphaeramia nematoptera)
and a rabbitfish?
likely the barred spinefoot rabbitfish (Siganus doliatus)
looks like you might be doing a "natural reef" type tank?
how's that working out?
oh, btw, don't forget when you take pics of your tank to adjust the focus for the change in density between your subject and the camera. I've often found that if you use autofocus, it doesn't work too well.
alternatively, if you're using a digicam, boost the iso and shoot a narrower aperture to get a better dof, and it won't matter if the autofocus is a bit off.
cheers!
-------------- "And the sea will grant each man new hope..."
Good eye! Yep that's a PJ cardinal, there's not too much confusion there, and you nailed the rabbitfish as doliatus but those rabbitfish common names are all over the place. I think it's because there are so many varieties of rabbitfish that have wild coloration, and there are probably many hybrids out there. What's a species, anyway? Hehe!
Yeah, I'm going for a natural tank. A true reef tank. So far so good, except for one extreme setback (36 hour power outage > temp drop > messy system crash) a year or 2 ago. I've had this 75 gallon tank running for 5 years. Every time I have a bit of spare money in my pocket I start dreaming of upgrading to a 180 gallon, but i have to remind myself that 600 bucks for the tank is a drop in the bucket compared to the rest of the equipment, not to mention the operating cost of more lights and pumps. Plus, I want to make my 75 as awesome as possible before I upgrade, and there's still plenty of room for growth.
I started with a little bit of rock and crushed coral, wet/dry sump, no skimmer, and 8 damsels that the fish store said I needed to cycle the tank... right. I had most of my inverts slowly die off in the first few months because I didn't realize my tap water was so "dirty." I changed to a full-blown RODI unit for all water replacement. I added lots of live rock and corals bought from established tanks. I added a deep fine sand bed only to have it become fully saturated with junk after the crash and I had to get rid of it. I've made the transition to a bare-bottom tank: no sand. I also replaced the wet-dry sump with a larger refugium sump, and most recently I added a giant skimmer rated for 400 gallons that is working great.
Currently all the circulation in the tank is provided through two Carlson (autosyphon) surge containers, one big enough to add rocks and light for another refuge. This makes some nice natural random wave action.
The pic above is shortly after I got the rabbitfish. You can see how I have good coralline algae growth on the back wall, but the rocks look pale with patches of hair algae. This is because the rabbitfish had just completely decimated the macro algaes I had allowed to dominate the tank after the crash.
I'm also now feeding live phytoplankton and I'm happy to say that the small-polyp stony coral colonies that had lost color before are now gaining it back. I rarely test many water parameters, I watch the critters, so this is a good indicator.
Thanks for the photo tips. I do use digital. Mostly autofocus and default settings... I'll have to try to ISO thing, cause I've got lots of pictures where the middle of a fish is in focus and the head and tail aren't!
Hope you like reading about my tank, I could go on all day! Cheers!
. Every time I have a bit of spare money in my pocket I start dreaming of upgrading to a 180 gallon, but i have to remind myself that 600 bucks for the tank is a drop in the bucket compared to the rest of the equipment, not to mention the operating cost of more lights and pumps. Plus, I want to make my 75 as awesome as possible before I upgrade, and there's still plenty of room for growth.
the "wonderful" thing about aquariums is that a lot of folks have tried them at one time or another, which means there's always used tanks you can grab for a very small fraction of the price of a new one.
When you're ready to try a bigger tank; try checking out your local paper, or any local pet-trader magazine. also, putting up a want ad at your local aquarium store (if the owner is cool with that), can get score you a new tank cheap too.
sorry to hear of that crash; I had many of those myself when i used to keep tropicals. I gave up on that years back in favor of local temperates i could catch myself, and put in refrigerated aquaria instead. they seem much more tolerant.
keep pluggin and have fun with that tank!
cheers
-------------- "And the sea will grant each man new hope..."
Incidentally, how come you didn't change your handle on Panda's Thumb?
-------------- "Rich is just mad because he thought all titties had fur on them until last week when a shorn transvestite ruined his childhood dreams by jumping out of a spider man cake and man boobing him in the face lips." - Erasmus
I dunno. Your call, of course. I just noticed your old handle was still at PT and I thought maybe it was a 'statement' of some kind.
Of course, you'd have to make sure no one thought you were trying to do some kind of sockpuppet thing. PT is more, uh, uptown than ATBC...
-------------- "Rich is just mad because he thought all titties had fur on them until last week when a shorn transvestite ruined his childhood dreams by jumping out of a spider man cake and man boobing him in the face lips." - Erasmus
Nonsense! I heard it from Andrea Bottaro that PvM's going to try and top Steve Story's Poll with "Who is most likely to produce fertile offspring with a chimpanzee, Larry Fafarman, Dembski, or Berlinski?" And he'll also find a way to sneak in the phrase "Scientifically vacuous" or "Scientific vacuity."
Well, at least one of those things is true.
-------------- "Why waste time learning, when ignorance is instantaneous?" -Calvin
hey, one fish's reprehensible is another fish's bliss.
who are we to judge?
I am of course reminded of the reason WC Fields once gave for why he never drank water...
-------------- "Rich is just mad because he thought all titties had fur on them until last week when a shorn transvestite ruined his childhood dreams by jumping out of a spider man cake and man boobing him in the face lips." - Erasmus
