gerbilbox

No update in months, but all is well. I should start each post with "nothing has died" since that's always good news for a beginner, so let me start over:

Nothing has died. Most corals showing growth, especially the frogspawns and hammers, and worms are more numerous--and that's a good thing 'cause I love my spaghetti worms. My tank reached a point where I was able to "safely neglect" it, although I still gave it weekly water changes. Actually, that's almost all I've done in my tank for months, just weekly water changes and dropping bits of coral and hermit crab food each week. I need to inspect the AquaClear impellor since it has been having some trouble restarting after some maintenance but I do have a back-up plan in place.

I'm glad that I don't have any fish (yet) because work, exercise, and a week long vacation has kept me from my tank on a daily basis. Did I mention that I saw a real tropical coral reef for the first time last month? More on that later.

I was motivated to post in part because I'll be attending BayMAc this Saturday, the annual Bay Area Marine Aquarium Conference in California. It'll be my first aquarium conference. Not sure if anyone else here is in the Bay Area or are planning to attend.

I went to Florida for a week last month originally to catch the penultimate Space Shuttle launch, but delays have pushed it well past my schedule's flexibility. The delays freed up some time, so I put together a last minute trip to the Everglades and Biscayne National Parks. It was at Biscayne Bay that I took a snorkeling tour at their reefs. Gorgonians were dominant such as sea fans and sea whips, but plenty of stony corals as well. I was actually amazed to find so many Christmas tree worms. I hope that the cheap disposable underwater camera photos will turn out decent. Can't wait to see a tropical Pacific reef someday.