Feeding & Behavior Observation

Ammonia = 0.00
This morning (7:15 AM) I dropped some food in the tank.
I have to say Mimo looks almost exactly like his new bud, I'm pretty sure they are of the same kind.
I could tell Mimo from his new bud right away! Mimo and the Devil went right after the food, but that fish stayed out. When he tried to approach the food he was let know by the Devil that he is not welcomed here. No fierce attacks, just little chase away.

Mimo meets who?

Today almost three months after I got Mimo and the tank I got him a buddy. I have to name that other fish! I found him yesterday in New World Aquarium. Hopefully he didn't change sex yet and still is a male.
Acclimation:
Dropped a bag in the water. Fed the cat.
Poured some water into the bag. Took off my work clothes.
Poured some more water in. Went looking for the net. Cursed cuz I couldn't find it.
Poured the water with the clown out of the bag into the bucket through the net.
Released clown into the tank.
P.S. By the time this happened, only Moon LEDs were on.
Also bought Phytoplankton.

Mushroom Planting

Today I decided to split my mushroom colony I had recently acquired. As I had discovered, one of the pegs had not one, but three mushrooms!

Prep 1
Gathering:
0. Read some articles on mushroom fragging.
1. Found a cork (from wine bottle)
2. Found never-used blade
3. Found some bandage
4. Found rubber band from old fish bag
5. Found a plastic container (used it before to transfer my fish in it)
6. Paper towel roll.

Prep 2.
1. Put a chair next to the tank
2. Thoroughly rinsed the blade and rubbed it with paper towel
3. Rinsed the cork
4. Spliced the cork to shorten it.
5. Tried the cork in aquarium (to see if it'll stay put) - it did.
6. Cut a piece of bandage small enough to cover the cork
7. Filled container (5) with aquarium water and put it on the chair
8. Took mushrooms peg out of the tank and tried to separate small mushroom growing on the side of the peg. (Mushroom became slimy and hard to handle. Scraped it off with the blade.)
9. Rinsed the peg with remaining two mushrooms in the container to remove excessive slime.
10. 10 Placed the peg back where it was in the tank.
11. "Pasted" the mushroom on top of the cork
12. Covered the cork with bandage and fixed it in place with rubber band.
13. Cut excess of bandage with the blade
14. Rinsed in the container.Place the newly planted mushroom next to the mother colony.
Will take the bandage off on July 7th (two weeks from planting time should allow the mushroom to heal).

New Corals

This morning the KT corals were doing fine, though leaning towards the filter intake under the flow. The fish seemed to be stressed and hiding out. So I turned off the filter for the day (Turned it back on at night when the fish were more or less OK).

More Corals

Today I had picked up life rock from a member at Manhattan Reefs forum. The rock has two Kenya Tree coral branches on it. Some baby yellow sun corals and baby mushrooms growing on it.
I brought the LR with corals home, and put it in a bucket. The water didn't cover the corals and they hanged down helplessly. I started to syphon water from my tank to the bucket until it was full. Then let is stand there while I was re-arranging LRs and Corals in my tank. When I was done, I took the rock out of the bucket and placed it in the center of my tank. The KTs stood up. I saw a couple of creatures in the bucket that looked like slim starfishes. I scooped them out and put them in my tank as well.
I dumped the water out of the bucket and mixed some new one to compensate for the lost water in the tank.

First Corals added!

Today I have bought my first corals!
I got 1 mushroom and two others.
Pictures will be posted.
When I brought them in only my night light was on. I turned on the dawn lights and floated the bag for some time. Then I had poured the water into the bag once, let it float, poured it again, let it float. Then I took the sticks out and transferred the corals over. I burried the sticks up to the top in the live sand. Two next to live rock and one in the front of the tank. Then turned the lights back off.

Maint Day

Parameters before PWC
Sp Grav: 1.022
Ph: 8.0 - 8.2
PO4: 0.0 - 0.1
NH3/NH4: 0.o <- 0.25

Partial water change: 10 % (1 bucket) @ SPG 1.023
Iodine: 40 drops added
Temp: 86F

Light Adjustment

I noticed that the temperature of the tank is around 88 F. In an effort to cool it down a bit, I have adjusted my 200 Wt heater to around 75 F and put two front legs on the light fixture to lift it off the tank cover. Now there will be air under the light to carry away heat from the bulb.
At last: I keep air conditioner on at 84 F to control room temperature.
Future plans:
1. Add two rear legs to uplift light fixture more.
2. Add computer air fans to move air below the light fixture.

Fed the fish with flakes.

Filter Maint

Fluval 204 maint:
L = Fiber
M = Biorings
H = Purigen in mesh bag + more fiber
Changed O-ring and siliconed top to bottom to stop leakage.