my kanai rock is coming tonight!

[Quinn]

woo! gonna pick up 70lbs at the airport in calgary tonight! two days ahead of schedule!

[Canadian Man]

Cool! Make sure to take some pics as I'm sure you will!

[Quinn]

<sniff sniff> do you smell that? that is the sweet perfume of uncured live rock. and i get to marinate in it for the next few days. rock arrived, no hassles getting it. took it home, box contained about six nice large chunks (football sized we'll say) and a lot of other pieces between the size of a softball and tennis ball, with the usual marble sized debris. nice shapes, generally longer than thin, and one piece with some really neat holes through it (small fish will love that one i am sure). a lot of crabs, some dead, some alive, none appeared to be mithrax, as there were no red eyes, pincers were very small, and the crabs appeared unable to pull their legs into their body like mithrax's can. the ones i found i threw into the fuge, they promptly burrowed under the sand, i saw one later in the main tank, so i am sure there are many more. also found a dead hermit crab, a very small (1") mantis shrimp-like shrimp, but without the weird front arms/legs, and lots of worms of various types. the rock itself has a lot of red and orange coraline on it, and a lot of what i'd call kelp but probably isn't. also a few pieces of valonia i picked off what i could, but i'm sure i missed some, so i may have to deal with that in the future. this 70lbs brings my total tank up to 220lbs of rock, way more than i need, so when the water clears up i will finish aquascaping and sell off some of my base rock. i took pics of critters, rocks, will post them tomorrow.

edit - sorry about the lack of spacing and organization, it was late last night.

[Quinn]

http://rdcpsych.binbash.org/quinn/ne...may%2028%2003/

my digi cam is super old, therefore pics are really low quality. note the crab photos, and the two odd shrimp. the image with the red circle indicates where the black guy was hiding. looks like a mini mantis or something to me. he died as i was pulling him out of the hole with a screwdriver, the white guy is somewhere in the fuge. i realized afterwards that he most likely eats pods, so i hope he dies off when the tank cycles the snail was the only live one i saw, thought it was kinda cool, hoping it's just an algae eater.

if you folks are passing down my way, give me a holler in advance and you can drop by and check out the tank.

[Beverly]

Originally Posted by "teevee

note the crab photos, and the two odd shrimp. the image with the red circle indicates where the black guy was hiding. looks like a mini mantis or something to me. he died as i was pulling him out of the hole with a screwdriver, the white guy is somewhere in the fuge. i realized afterwards that he most likely eats pods, so i hope he dies off when the tank cycles the snail was the only live one i saw, thought it was kinda cool, hoping it's just an algae eater.

Both shrimp and crabs are pretty strange looking to me. The snail looks like one that hiked in on our rock. Often hides out during the day but is active at night on the rock and glass. It's a keeper, Quinn

Lotsa rock! Take a few stabs at arranging it before selling any off, though. You never know when you're going to need that extra bit of rock to do something or other to perfect the structure.

Looks like you've got a great start

[Aquattro]

yup, that's a mantis!!

[Quinn]

<teevee pats self on back for putting predator into fuge>

i may end up pulling apart the fuge tonight to rip him out. i guess i have a soft spot for crabs. i don't have one for mantis' (unless they're in a species tank).

bev good point. the stuff i was planning to sell is base rock, not the kanai stuff, but it won't be gone before i have a few chances to rearrange. already did a bunch more work in the tank tonight, i'm close but not perfect. i have a lot of kanai stuff still lying in the tank, not in position.

when i was piling the kanai into the tank last night, the pile collapsed forward. amazingly, my base rock, which has been in place since before the water went into the tank, didn't move an inch. it was really odd shapes and i spent a lot of time making lots of caves and stuff, so basically the bottom half of my rock is huge chunks of base rock with lots of holes, and the top half is the kanai stuff, piled fairly closely together, still with lots of "condos" for small fish. the rock on the left side starts about halfway back, on the right only about 6" from the front of the tank (24" depth). so i have quite the plain of sand on one side. i think i'm fairly close to having it the way i want though, just a bit more tweaking once i get my lights on there and can see properly (using a standard 60w light bulb to arrange rock is like trying to build lego looking through yellow jello).

[Canadian Man]

Originally Posted by teevee

(using a standard 60w light bulb to arrange rock is like trying to build lego looking through yellow jello).

great analogy!

[Bob I]

Originally Posted by teevee

http://rdcpsych.binbash.org/quinn/ne...may%2028%2003/

my digi cam is super old, therefore pics are really low quality. note the crab photos, and the two odd shrimp. the image with the red circle indicates where the black guy was hiding. looks like a mini mantis or something to me. he died as i was pulling him out of the hole with a screwdriver, the white guy is somewhere in the fuge. i realized afterwards that he most likely eats pods, so i hope he dies off when the tank cycles the snail was the only live one i saw, thought it was kinda cool, hoping it's just an algae eater.

if you folks are passing down my way, give me a holler in advance and you can drop by and check out the tank.

Why not have a peek at the Hitchiker FAQ to see if you can find any of the creatures there.