I always think it’s interesting to see the animals we keep in our aquariums in their natural habitat. Here are some photos I took diving & snorkeling in Kauai last summer. Pocillopora eydouxi (?) & damsels

Pocillopora eydouxi

Yellow tang w/ appropriately sized swimming area

Pair of Chaetodon lunula

Sea Turtle

Sea Turtle

Reef Safe?

Reef Safe?

Reef Safe?

More photos can be seen here. There’s an obvious difference in quality of photos from rental camera from diving and cheap underwater camera from the snorkel photos, but still some gorgeous wrasses, orange shoulders, schools of convicts… thanks for looking!

We use spectrophotometry, auto-titration, and specialized ion specific probes to deliver a level of accuracy 100 to 1000 times greater than that of home testing procedures. A panel is our series of 14 tests run on a single water sample submission.

Ammonia

Nitrite

Nitrate

Phosphate

Silica

Alkalinity

Calcium

Potassium

Magnesium

Strontium

Molybdenum

Iodine

Copper

Boron

Now I’ve read quite a few threads on forums re: AWT’s results. Some seem to be skeptical at best. I haven’t had time to sit down and test my tank lately, so the plan is to do a small water change on Wed., then sit down Sunday evening, run a battery of tests using everything I got, and mailing in samples of the same water to AWT. I’ll post the results once I receive them, and I am kind of anxious to see what will happen.

In other news, I noticed that a setting was not allowing for strangers to comment, spam filters and whatnot. So if you tried in the past and it wouldn’t let you, please try again! For better or for worse, speak your mind - you won’t offend anyone at StonyReef.com

And, the photo gallery is up and running! New pictures added weekly, so please take a look!

This Putergarnele originates from an import of the company Tropical Live import, Menden in the sour country. Appears not very shy and is difficult nich to keep. Adapt to shrimps particularly well and slowly to the new water, since this to density variations are somewhat more sensitive than other animals…

We hold a pair in the shrimp basin. We are not us united whether this kind of shrimp is suitable for a society basin actually, since we could observe already several times that they tore and ate whole Tentakeln from the Quadricolors. Because of hunger it cannot have been.

We get the Lysmata kueckenthali regular from the Philippines Dr. Thomas Heeger Cebu. After customer information this shrimp eats also from glass roses.

From what I gather elsewhere, it is one of the 25 species of cleaner shrimps in the Lysmata genus, comes from East Asia, and is kind of a Pacific version of the Peppermint Shrimp (Lysmata wurdemanni). It is almost twice the size of my Peppermints, and it is way more aggressive than my peps or skunk cleaner - not so much aggressive towards tank mates, it seems as calm as any cleaner, but as soon as the scent of food hits the water, this guys goes nuts. Hopefully I can find some more information on it. If not, I have a cool new shrimp I’ve never seen in any LFS before.

this:

and these:

And after those little guys get used to the tank, I’ll add this to the mix:

The Vortech, yeah. I’m going to upgrade within a year, so I’ll use that as justification. I currently have 2 Tunze 6025’s for flow, which do a great job, but they’re a little intrusive, and the flow pattern is not as dispersed as I’d like. Plus, what the hell…

I’ve not had luck in the past with clownfish. Bought a gorgeous pair of ORA Picassos a few months ago - one of them died within a week, the other very shortly thereafter. I hope these guys do a little better - it is a pair of Solomon Island clowns from LiveAquaria’s Diver’s Den. They’re about twice the size of the picasso percs I got, and look a little fatter / healthier as well. Fingers are crossed regardless. I saw their pic and already had the credit card out for the Vortech.

And the A. soli… Much thanks to the guys at Glassbox for posting random pics of their favorite specimens, again I found myself at the liveaquaria website starting at this little nub of aquacultured Acropora solitaryensis… no justification necessary…