waking jonas is dealing with that outfit.

muppet update

this is the blenny that lives in the aquarium now. in case you were curious, dippy the clownfish died a while ago from a clownfish disease called brooklynella hostillis. this was a sad business, but jared said all this means now is that he’s going to get a pair of them. the protein skimmer is clearing all the crap out of the tank and hopefully disposing the yuck that killed dippy. i really hope new clownfish will survive because the emotional distress from dippy’s unfortunate demise was a little much to bear.

the blenny looks like something jim henson would come up with, and basically all it does is rub on rocks and bother the coral. it likes to back itself into this little hole that it lives in and watch you with it’s big bug eyes.

[...] my tank is finally settling down.? for some reason my cycle took about two months to kick in.? kinda took my by surprise because i had thought it was just a weak cycle or i completely missed it and everything was fine.? everything was not fine.? for a couple days i had a horrible nitrate spike and i nearly burned up a rock i just bought that was covered in zoanthid and star polyps.? the star polyps are bleached but they’re coming back with a vengeance.? the zoanthid colony was pretty much decimated; it’s less than half it’s size now (i think it was unhappy and started dying and falling off the rock, which in turn triggered the nitrate spike and cycled my tank).? there’s a solid patch of it left though and when that recovers there will be no stopping it.? it’s been about three weeks or so since dippy died. i’m hoping another two or so weeks and water changes will get rid of whatever parasite he had that might still be lingering in the water.? i would really like to get a pair of them.? i can’t decide if i want orange or black.? since i know a guy at the fish store i can get them for about the same price.? and both cheaper than retail.? i’m really unhappy with the rock arrangement right now.? but since the nutrient levels are being good i feel like i shouldn’t disturb it.? soon enough though i’ll have my hands in there and completely rearrange the universe belonging to the critters in my ocean box.? i’m going to try my hand at actually aquascaping the tank rather than have it be a box filled with water and a pile of rocks in the middle.? keeping a marine tank isn’t all that much harder than freshwater.? you just have to pay attention to it more (which is easy because i obsess over hobbies) and you have to be a lot more patient (which is hard because i obsess over hobbies).? after about two months up, two shrimp, about 5 snails, possibly 4 hermit crabs, and a clownfish later things seem to be leveling out.? which is good because i want more critters. [...]